Twenty Three Chromosomes
by poestheblackcat
Summary: Birthday challenge for myself to write one story about family/genes/etc. for every birthday. Some one-shots are related to each other, some are standalones. Updated daily. Now up: "Lunchtime" - Leverage Consulting & Associates, Jr., continued. The take-down of another bully and a serious discussion about personal hygiene and unicorns. "Sticky Little Fingers" verse. COMPLETE
1. Family Circus

Super-long AN: Every year for my birthday, I write a collection of one-shots as a present to myself, one for each year that I've lived. Each year, I have a theme. For example, for my twentieth birthday, the theme was "Twenty Questions." For my twenty-first, it was alcohol (the drinking age where I live is twenty-one), and last year, it was bullets/guns (for .22 caliber bullets). This year, the theme is "Twenty-Three Chromosomes" (family, genes, etc). Also, the last three years have been all _Supernatural, _or_ Supernatural_ crossovers. This year, it will be all _Leverage_, or _Leverage_ crossovers. In addition, there will be more crossovers this year than there were in previous years. I'm obsessed with crossovers. Overall, I use more than just _Leverage_ and one other fandom, but they all include _Leverage_ somewhere in the mix, so I'm posting this in the _Leverage_ category. (If this is wrong, admins, please let me know before deleting it, and I will gladly put the story in whatever category you deem is correct.)

Last thing: I will be updating this daily until my birthday (you'll know it when I get to #23). (Readers of my "McDonald Boys" stories, please note that I am breaking my New Year's resolution with this fic. I hadn't up until now. [Go me!] I don't have every story written in the collection yet, even though I was supposed to have them all done before I started posting the thing. Whoooops. *guilty* But hey, it's a challenge...which I'm a little worried about this year, to tell the truth...)

Collection Summary: Birthday challenge for myself to write one story about family/genes/etc. for every birthday. Updated daily.

RE title: I know it's 23 **pairs** of chromosomes, but that just sounds weird. *shrugs*

Edit 9/13: I ended up with about three or four different verses, so make sure you read the story summaries. Otherwise, you'll be very confused.

Story Summary: Picking pockets on the way home comes as naturally to Parker as climbing and jumping off of tall buildings. Parker accidentally "bumps into" her birth mom.

* * *

**Family Circus**

One day, on the way home from the office like so many other Bostonians, Parker bumps into someone...and takes her wallet. It's normal for her, an instinctive habit that no amount of yelling or therapy has ever fixed, and that years of training have honed into skills almost supernatural.

Picking pockets comes as naturally to Parker as climbing and jumping off of tall buildings. Hands dipping in and out of jackets and purses, she flits and flutters from person to person, taking wallets and phones, and even sometimes switching one person's for another just for fun.

That particular day, however, she took the wrong person's wallet. Or perhaps it was the right person and Fate just felt like being funny that day.

She bumps into the woman and gleefully examines her bounty when she's a few steps away.

She freezes. _No, _she thinks, looking at the name on the driver's license, _that's not how it works. That's _not_ how it works._

She stands there for what seems like enough time to crack three safes, just staring at the tiny photograph on the card. _So that's what she looks like now._

Growing up, she had stolen her own files enough times to recognize the name (and besides, that's one name she'll never truly forget), and once she'd had the means to do so, she had, like the proverbial curious cat, looked up the woman who had given birth to her. The _girl_ who had given birth to her.

Natalie Fletcher.

She had been fifteen years old, although she'd claimed to be older at the hospital where she'd given birth to the daughter she gave up for adoption, a baby girl who eventually grew up to be one of the best thieves in the world.

Parker stands in the middle of the sidewalk and stares at the name and the blurry photograph. The rushing crowd parts around her like the water around a rock in the middle of a raging river.

She tucks the ID back into the clear plastic insert in the worn leather wallet and weaves her way back to the woman, her mother, her _real _mother. As she slips the wallet back into the woman's purse, a hand darts out and grabs her wrist in an iron grip.

"What do you think you're doing?" Natalie Fletcher says. The wind blows wisps of her blond hair into her face.

Parker gasps, words lost as she stares into her mother's face. Even though she is fifteen years older, Natalie is more beautiful than she is, she can't help thinking. Her features are softer, unlike Parker's own sharp looks, and her lips are fuller, her cheeks rounder. But her eyes. They're alike, the two of them. Broken.

Startled, the older woman's grip loosens enough for Parker to slip out and take off at a run.

"Hey!"

For an almost fifty-year-old, she's fast and very much in shape. Feeling Natalie start to catch up to her, Parker darts into an alleyway and shoots a line up to the roof.

Natalie runs into the alley as Parker zooms straight up, her own blond hair trailing behind her. Parker chances a look down at her mother's face as she jumps up onto the roof.

Wonder and confusion battle for dominance (even she can tell that), but there's also a touch of hope and...longing? She's not Sophie, but she thinks that that's maybe what it is. She's felt that expression so often on her own face.

Two days later, Parker sits on a roof and shivers.

The others had noticed that something was up with her, and had reacted in their own characteristic ways. Sophie had made them both a "nice cup of tea" and had sat her down for some "girl talk." Hardison had chattered and babbled and had invented a new x-ray app for her phone. Eliot had grunted something about her "jus' bein' crazy like always" and whipped up her favorite dessert, just for her. And Nate had watched them all over the rim of his glass of whiskey, with that expression that makes him look like a tricky fox or a sly snake.

She looks down at the photograph in her hand. It's a different one from the one on the ID that she'd returned to the wallet. She had taken this one from a different pocket.

This picture is old, over thirty years old. A teenaged Natalie Fletcher, wearing a cotton hospital gown, holds a tiny baby in her arms. Strands of her golden hair are plastered to her forehead and she looks tired, but the expression in her face could never be mistaken for anything other than love.

Parker frowns at the picture. How can that be, when she'd gone and signed the papers giving her up so soon after it had been taken? But why had Natalie kept the old photograph all these years if it didn't mean something to her?

She's so confused. She wishes she could tell Sophie about it, but long years of hoarding the secrets of her past keep her from approaching the grifter.

So she does what she always does. She takes care of the problem herself.

She steps to the edge of the building and lowers herself to a twelfth floor window. She silently picks the lock and opens it enough to squeeze through. As she's closing the window, the light flickers on.

She whirls around with a gasp, eyes wide open. She steels herself for what's coming. The yelling, the anger, maybe even things being thrown at her. It wouldn't be the first time.

"It's you, isn't it?" Natalie says calmly, tying her robe around her. This reminds Parker that it's late, and you're not supposed to call on people unexpectedly, especially if it's three in the morning (she knows this thanks to a grumbled lesson from Eliot when she'd snuck into his apartment for cookies [not that it actually stopped her from doing it again]).

"What's me?" Parker asks stupidly. This was not the reaction she had anticipated.

"You're not here to steal anything," the woman says, coming closer. "I don't have anything worth stealing. You put my wallet back with all my IDs and credit cards. But you did take something else that has sentimental value to only two people in the world. So I guess the question is, did you find me on purpose? Or was it...the workings of chance and fate?" The corner of her mouth quirks up.

Parker stares. Definitely not the reaction she'd expected.

Natalie smiles softly. "You look like him," she says, "your father. He had quick hands, too."

Parker wrinkles her nose and wonders vaguely if that means what she thinks it's _supposed_ to mean or if it means exactly what _she_ thinks it means.

Natalie's smile widens. "He was a sleight of hand magician for a small travelling circus."

Oh. Parker hadn't known that. She hadn't known anything about her father, not even his name.

"And I," Natalie says, walking over to a table littered with framed pictures, "I was the trapeze artist." She picks up one of the frames and grins at Parker. "Does that surprise you?"

Parker shrugs. "I thought you were a gymnastics teacher."

"I am now. But before..." Natalie hands her the photograph. "That's all of us there. That's your father. Lumiére the Amazing. Of course, he was really Rick Larson from Monrovia, California. And that's me. The Magnificent Natalia. More than a couple of us in the circus were kids who'd run away from home, but we had our share of fun before we got caught," she chuckles.

Parker runs her finger over the face of the boy Natalie claims is her father. There's a resemblance, a definite resemblance. The sharp angles of his nose and cheeks, the elfin quality of his features - that's her face staring back at her. A magician? So that's where her quick hands came from. And her mother had been a trapeze artist. That suddenly makes a whole lot of sense.

"I'm a thief," she blurts out.

Natalie laughs. "I figured when I felt your hand in my purse. And now when you climbed in through the window."

Parker tilts her head. "You don't mind?"

"What part of 'I ran away with the circus when I was a kid' don't you get?" Natalie says, in a way that Parker pinpoints as being sort of sad. "I'm sure you have your reasons. I had mine."

"You didn't want me."

Natalie sits down on the couch and takes her hand, pulling her down to sit beside her. "I did. I really did. But they brought my parents in and _they_ didn't want me to keep you. I wanted you, but they made me sign the papers. And when I tried to find you later, I couldn't. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Parker looks at the hand holding hers. _But..._She can't think of anything other than _but..._

"I don't even know your name, sweetie." A hesitant hand reaches out and tucks an errant blond strand behind her ear. Instead of falling back down into the lap of the bathrobe, it lingers over her temple and cups gently around her cheek.

"Parker," she hears herself say, "Just Parker."

"I like that name," Natalie says. Parker turns to her. "It suits you. Whenever I thought of you before, I always called you Baby. Just Baby. And now I have a name to call you by."

Parker stares. Wanted. She was wanted. She'd been wanted, even before she was born, even after she'd been given up.

All her life, she'd felt like a burden until she'd taken herself off of everyone's hands and started raising herself. Even after Archie. He'd cared, in his own way, but only because of what she could do, and not who she was. Even the team. They like her because of her skills. If she wasn't the best thief in the world, she doubts they'd even look at her twice.

_Or maybe not,_ the voice in her head says, _maybe they'd still like me. Yeah, they'd still like me._

"So, Parker," Natalie says, interrupting her inner monologue, "Do you want something to drink? Milk and cookies?"

Parker perks up. "You have cookies?"

"Three a.m. cookies are the best," her mother says with a familiar impish grin. "Especially if you have someone to share them with."

They _are_ the best. Even better than Eliot's. (Just don't tell him that because then he'll sulk and there will be no more almost-the-best cookies.)

Natalie is another one of Parker's many secrets. But maybe this is one that she can share with the others. This is one that she actually _wants_ to share. After all, her mother is one of the very few people in Parker's life who didn't think that she was crazy for wanting to go jump off a building together at five in the morning. In fact, she even took her up on the offer.


	2. Things Sam Knows

AN: Wow, thanks for all the lovely reviews, guys! I really appreciate it! And now I have to get my butt moving on writing more fic because I'm not done writing them all!

Summary: Things Sam Ford knows, as a baby and to the end and beyond.

* * *

**Things Sam Knows**

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As a baby, Sammy knows Her and Him.

She is soft and smells nice, feeds him warm milk and sings him to sleep.

He has a rough chin and cheeks, and smells like that stuff which Sammy would later know as coffee. He talks to Sammy like He talks to Her and other Big People like he knows what He is saying.

Sammy also knows that when He thinks no one is looking, He kisses Sammy's belly and pretends to eat him. Sammy thinks it's funny and laughs.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When Sammy is a little older, he knows more stuff.

He knows that he likes blue the best, but red is pretty cool, too, because that's what color fire trucks are. Red is also the color the Red Sox wear, and they're his favorite baseball team. But blue is the best because that's Daddy's favorite color.

Sammy also knows that he likes his friends, Bobby and Joey, and that they like him. They play in the park together, and their Mommies talk grown-up mommy talk.

He also knows that he loves Mommy and Daddy and that they love him.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sammy likes cartoons and comics and superheroes. He likes Superman, Batman, and the X-Men.

His teachers tell him that he's gifted. Sammy asks if that means he's going to have superpowers when he grows up. He thinks that would be pretty cool. The grown-ups laugh and say that he has an active imagination. But he really wants to know.

Daddy's a superhero. He catches bad guys and makes them give the jewels or famous paintings, or whatever it was they stole, back to the people they belong to. Sammy loves to hear Daddy's stories about how he caught the beautiful, exotic actress, and about the time he almost caught the blonde ghost-thief. One of his favorites is the story of the thief who reminds Daddy of an old-time cowboy from Westerns. Another favorite is the computer genius because the way Daddy tells it, he does silly things that get him caught, even though he's so good at what he does.

Daddy doesn't hate the bad guys (only if they do _really_ bad things). They're just doing their jobs, and he's doing his.

But, Daddy always tells him at the end, stealing is bad.

Daddy is really cool.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Daddy knows everything. He's the smartest guy in the world. Sammy knows this, like he knows that Mommy's super smart, too, and that she's the prettiest, most beautiful lady in the universe. And she's always right. Daddy's smart, but he's not smart enough to have that one figured out. It's funny.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It's Sam, not Sammy.

Now, if only Mommy and Daddy wouldn't keep forgetting that!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sam has to miss school again. And go to the doctor's _again._ His friends think that it's cool that he gets to miss so much school, but it's not that great because Sam feels icky all the time.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sam hates throwing up. He hates hurting all the time, and he really, really hates shots. And nurses. But Dr. Burton is funny and nice and has a big smile and a big, funny belly that jiggles when he laughs.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sam's really sick. He knows this from the looks on people's faces when they find out why he's so small and skinny and pale. Sam hates it when they call him "poor baby." He's not a baby. He doesn't like it when people feel sorry for him and his parents.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Daddy's going to take him to see a ballgame when he gets better. He loves baseball. Daddy knows all the rules, all the players, all the stats, and basically _everything_ about baseball. It'll be great.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mommy cries at night, especially when Daddy's not home. Daddy works a lot. Sam knows that he has to work to make money. They don't have a lot of money. Sam knows this because he hears Mommy and Daddy whispering about it when they think he's asleep. He doesn't tell them he knows, though. He doesn't want them to worry about him anymore.

He sleeps in Mommy and Daddy's room when Daddy's not home. It makes Mommy cry less. She makes Sam feel not as scared that he might die.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sam knows that he's going to die. He doesn't remember when he first realized this, but it's something that he knows. He knows that Mommy knows he knows, but Daddy doesn't. Daddy doesn't know that he's going to die.

No, that's not right. Daddy knows that Sam's going to die, but he doesn't want to believe it. Daddy keeps telling him that he's going to get better and that they're going to go see the Red Sox play.

Sam knows that they're not.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He's not afraid. He thinks that maybe he should be, but he's not. He doesn't know why he isn't scared. He used to be, but he's not anymore. He used to be mad, too. He used to be really, really mad at God and the doctors and everybody, but he's not mad anymore.

He's tired, really, really tired of _being_ tired and hurting all the time. He tells Mommy this and she hugs him and tells him, "I know, baby, I know." Mommy gets him, like she always does. Mommy knows everything.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It hurts. All the time. He's tired.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Daddy looks so scared. Sam doesn't know what to do about that. He's too busy hurting to _do_ anything. It hurts. Dying hurts. Daddy looks so scared. Mommy looks scared, too, but Daddy's breaking.

It hurts.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And then it doesn't anymore. It's bright, and all the angels are beautiful like Father Paul says they are (but not as beautiful as Mommy). But Mommy and Daddy aren't here, and now it's his turn to worry about them. Mommy's crying, but Sam worries more about Daddy. An angel tells him that he won't have to worry so much because Daddy's going to be okay, too. Not right away, but in a little while.

So Sam watches. He watches Mommy get better. He watches Daddy get worse, and then he watches him get better, little by little. He watches him become a real-life superhero and make another family, and he feels proud of him. He still misses his parents, but they're okay, and that's what matters.

He can wait for them. He's a big boy.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


	3. K: Kimi

Summary: Eliot has a secret, a tiny, precious secret...about four years old with big brown eyes and his sense of humor. AU Daddy!fic

* * *

**Kimi**

Eliot holds the precious little hand in his as they walk up the narrow country lane leading to their house. It's a nice house; not too big, but not too small either. It's just right for the two of them. He hums a tune, and smiles when a moment later, a soft voice pipes in, precluded by a giggle and a skip. He grins down at the little girl by his side and gets a beaming smile in return.

Sometimes he doesn't feel as if he deserves the absolute adoration she gives him, but she bestows it freely and unconditionally all the same. It makes him consider the idea that maybe he's a better man than he thinks. And that feels...good.

He lets go for a minute while he fishes his key ring out of his pocket. Then he pauses. Something's wrong. Something's _off._ His "Spidey senses," as one annoying hacker in his acquaintance puts it, are tingling.

He tilts his head, honing in on the _wrongness_.

Sound. Sounds from inside his house. Voices. Voices speaking English words. American (it's a very distinct accent, even muffled by walls and doors).

That in itself is odd, since they are nowhere near American soil.

He looks down at the little girl's worried face and puts his finger to his lips - and winks. She nods, and her dark, thick curls bob with the movement. Though he is doing his best to put her at ease, her eyes are wide open in fear. She can read him so well, even at only four years old. He silently puts the grocery bag in his hand down and kneels next to her.

"_It's okay, darlin'," _he whispers, tucking a curl behind a delicate pink-shelled ear, _"I'll be right back. Just stay real quiet, alright? I need you to count up to two hundred in your head. Okay? When you get to two hundred, and I haven't come out yet, I need you to run over next door and call your uncle. Can you do that?"_

The dark head bobs again. The tiny chin wobbles, but the tears welling up in big brown eyes valiantly refuse to fall.

"_Good girl. I love you." _He kisses the top of her head and opens the door as quietly as he can.

As he slips inside, he hears a familiar laugh (no, not really a laugh, but more of a combination snort-guffaw) and a voice says, "I like River. Think she knows how to open a safe?"

He groans inwardly.

Parker. And if Parker's there and asking a question like that, then Hardison's there with her. Correction: _here_ with her.

He stealthily slides through the door and comes up right behind them just as Hardison's replying, "I dunno, but that River got some serious waif-fu goin' on, I can tell you that. Wait 'til you see _Serenity."_

"What are you two doin' in my house?" Eliot says quietly.

Hardison shrieks, and the remote flies out of his grip. Parker squeals and throws her arms around his neck over the back of the sofa, grinning madly.

"Eliot! I missed you!"

He pats her back and grunts noncommittally. He won't admit it to anyone but himself, but he'd missed her too over the five-month break since they'd had to split up.

"What you gotta do that for, man?" the hacker whines, clutching his chest. "Near gave me a heart attack. I gotta be careful, got heart disease run in my family. What you do that for? Like a ninja. Seriously, man."

"You're in my house," Eliot points out again. Okay, okay, he'd missed Hardison too.

"Yeah," Hardison replies, "An' ya know how hard it was ta find you, holed up in the middle of nowhere?"

Middle of nowhere? Seriously? "We're in Japan. Why are you even here?"

"We missed you," Parker pouts.

"No, Parker missed you," Hardison says, "She just made me find you and come with her." He holds up his hands. Not his fault.

Eliot grunts again and stalks back out the door.

"Was it somethin' I said?" Hardison asks as he leaves. "What I say?"

A minute later, Eliot's back again, this time with the little girl clutching his much larger hand. She has dark hair and matching eyes, but her pink rosebud mouth and the shape of her eyebrows arching over the thick-lashed eyes are her father's.

The way she studies the two unexpected foreign visitors is like her father, too.

Hardison grins wide and crouches. "Hey there, little bit. You must be Kimiko. You know how I know that? It's 'cause you the cutest person in the room!"

Eliot scowls, but doesn't say anything. Later. Later, he'll interrogate Hardison on exactly how much he knows about his daughter. Not now because he doesn't want to scare Kimi.

The girl squirms bashfully and edges behind her father's jean-clad leg. One dark eye blinks up at the hacker from her safe hiding place.

"She's shy," Eliot says softly, and picks her up. The slender arms immediately go around his neck and the smooth, round cheek leans trustingly against the stubbled one. "My little shy girl, aren't you, Kimi?"

Parker stares. She doesn't remember ever being held like that. She doesn't remember being carried in strong arms and being kissed gently on the temple, nor does she recall ever believing that the safest place in the world is in someone else's embrace. But this girl, this little girl no more than four years old, knows the meaning of safe. She knows the meaning of unconditional love. And Parker can't help but feel a flicker of jealousy towards her.

The big dark eyes, slightly slanted, look into hers. Then the girl turns away, cups a tiny hand around her father's ear, and whispers.

Eliot chuckles, "That's Parker, honey. You like her hair? Hmm? She's got blonde hair. Don't see too much of that color around here, huh, Kimi? Least not naturally." He reaches up and tugs at a dark curl prompting a tiny frown and squeal of discomfort that turns into a giggle.

"She doesn't look like you," Parker says. "She looks Chinese."

The smile immediately turns into a scowl. "Her mama was Japanese. I ain't gonna explain basic genetics to ya, Parker," he growls, holding his daughter closer, as if to protect her from any and all hurtful words.

Kimi squirms in his arms and reaches for Parker's face, or maybe her glistening pale gold hair. She likes shiny, pretty things, and all the gifts and treats from her besotted uncle don't help matters at all.

"Whoa there, girlie," Eliot says, intercepting the small hand with his. "We don't grab at people's faces, hun. That isn't nice manners."

The little girl looks at her father and _pouts_.

Eliot chuckles. "You got the wrong guy, darlin'. You know that doesn't work on me."

Kimi grins at the challenge, nuzzles his cheek, and then proceeds to cover his face with kisses, little hands grabbing the shaggy mane to hold his head still.

"Alright, alright. You know what works, ya little charmer, you." He smacks a big kiss of his own on her nose and sets her down gently on her feet. "Papa has to go make dinner for you and our guests. Ya mind playin' hostess for me, Kimi? Why don't you go find a good movie to watch?"

With a bright smile, the girl scampers off and skids to a halt on sock-clad feet in front of the bookcase containing five shelves of books and one bottom shelf of animated movies. She peruses the row of titles with the same expression her father has when selecting exactly the right wine to serve with a meal.

"I already have a show on," Hardison protests, his mouth going even as his mind rushes to catch up to this bizarre, happy daddy version of Eliot. He points at the TV screen playing an episode of _Firefly._

Eliot raises an eyebrow. "Is it rated G? I don't think so. Turn it off, man, before that guy starts shootin' at people." As he speaks, Mal Reynolds lifts his gun, and...the screen goes dark.

"Thanks, Parker," Eliot says, turning away towards the kitchen.

"Can I teach her how to pick locks?"

Eliot stops with a groan. "No. No teaching her _anything_, both of you. Nothing. Just watch the d- movie and shu- stay quiet," he says, obviously struggling to censor his speech for the sake of young ears.

"Papa! Papa! Laddin!" Kimi cries and scampers over to her father. "Laddin!" She holds up the plastic movie case.

Eliot puts a hand on her shoulder and turns her gently towards the hacker. "Go give it to Hardison, sweetheart. He'll help you put it on."

Kimi tilts her head. "Harson?" she asks tentatively, testing the strange dark-skinned man's name on her tongue. She looks up at her papa for approval.

"Har-di-son," the hacker says, breaking his name down for her.

"Harson."

"You can just call me Alec," Hardison says. That should be easier for a little kid to say, right?

"Alec in Wunnerlan!" Kimi cries gleefully, dark eyes sparkling in excitement.

"No," Hardison says, shaking his head, "No, not Alice in Wonderland. A-lec. A-lec."

Parker giggle-snorts and Eliot hides a grin behind his hand.

"Alec Wunnerlan!" Kimi declares and holds the movie up.

And that's that.

"Alright," Hardison says, giving in, "Alec Wonderland it is. But only because you're so da- darn cute." He takes the proffered DVD case and puts _Aladdin _in the player.

Eliot walks into his kitchen shaking his head. Oh, Kimi. She knows exactly what she's doing, but damn it, she's so darn cute, as Hardison said, that he can't really scold her for taking advantage of the guy like that. Especially if Hardison is so gullible as to be taken in by a four-year-old grifter.

In the living room, he can hear Kimi chattering away in Japanese to Hardison and Parker, who obviously can't understand a word she's saying.

"Kimi, darlin'," he calls, "No Japanese while our guests are here, please. Be polite."

He groans and pinches the bridge of his nose when Kimi immediately changes course and switches to rapid-fire Russian.

"Kimiko Marie! English!"

* * *

AN: There's more of this if you want it. I just need to write it...


	4. TW: Lookin' at Me with Those Big Blue Ey

AN: Wow, overwhelming response on the last chapter. Thank you so much! I guess I'd better write more Eliot'n'Kimi then, huh? In the meantime, enjoy this one:

Today's chapter is a monster. I'd been thinking of writing it for a while, and then when the time came to think of stuff for this collection, I thought I could just write this as one of the chapters. I've done that with several of the stories in this fic, mainly the crossovers (this one is not a crossover, but it is half-based on a song).

Summary: Nana's first foster child was a boy named Eliot.

The title and some details about Eliot's past are from Christian Kane's song "Spirit Boy."

* * *

**Lookin' At Me With Those Big Blue Eyes**

"So that's all of 'em, Nana," Alec Hardison says, sounding satisfied with himself, "All your kids."

His Nana had taken in and cared for a lot of foster kids over the years. A month ago, she had expressed the wish to know what had happened to them. Many of them, like Alec, have kept in touch with her, send her letters and photographs, call, and come to visit, but so many others have been lost to her forever, disappeared into the vast foster care system.

As she'd grown older, she'd found herself wondering what had happened to them, if they'd grown up and gone to school, found happiness in marriage and children, if they'd turned out as well as she'd so hoped they would. She'd made up stories for them, happy stories, but in her heart of hearts, she'd known that most of their true stories weren't all sunshine and daisies.

The wondering had kept her up at night, until finally, she had asked Alec, one of her brightest, one of the ones who keeps in touch with her the most, to find them. Even as a young boy, he'd been able to do things with a piece of wire and some plastic bits that had amazed her, and now, well, truthfully, Mae Dowering doesn't want to know the things that boy knows how to do now. She only hopes that his cleverness won't get him into too much trouble. He helps people now, he's told her many a time.

She shouldn't worry, but she does. Nana's prerogative. Someone ought to, anyhow.

She'd asked him and he said he'd help her. He'd promised her that he'd find them, and true to his word, he has. He's found them, found them all.

Some of them are dead, from overdoses, gang fights, wars, from the damage their childhoods had taken at the hands of some of the other foster parents (ha, _parents_ - some folk don't deserve to be called that) they'd stayed with. Others are all grown and working hard, and some even have started families, like she'd hoped.

She should think about those children, the happy ones, and not about those she'd failed. But their faces, their poor, sweet faces - she'll never forget them, not any of them.

Now, Mae sits at her kitchen table, brown, withered hands cupped around her mug of tea. Her gaze is on the table, but Alec can see that her mind is elsewhere.

"Nana?"

Mae startles. "Oh, my boy, I'm sorry. Sometimes I feel my mind's goin', these days."

Alec doubts that. He really does. Nana's still as sharp as a tack. But there _is_ something wrong. "You alright?" he asks gently.

Nana sighs. "Mmm. I- I have something to show you, Alec." She stands, joints creaking. "You come with me, baby."

She leads the way to her room. The late afternoon sun filters in through the old yellow curtains, hand-sewn out of flower-patterned muslin by her momma years ago. The bed is tidy, just like she expects of all her children.

She kneels and pulls out the boxes of photo albums stored underneath the bed. Alec moves to help her, but is waved off. She runs a fingernail down the labels written neatly in black permanent ink until she finds the one she's looking for. Opening the box, she pauses.

Alec stands back near the door respectfully, not knowing what Nana is doing, but understanding that whatever it is, it's important, that she needs the time.

She reaches in and takes out one old album. Its blue and white gingham cover is faded and stained with age. The yellowed sticker on the front says _"1979."_ Nana holds the book in her hands, her expression saying that whatever is inside is too painful for her to open it right away. Then she nods to herself.

Ready now, she stands, old knees protesting. Alec holds her arm until she's steady. She makes her way to the bed and sits, patting the spot beside her. "Come here, Alec."

He sits on the patchwork quilt her momma's momma had made so long ago and waits. Nana opens the album with a sigh. The first photograph is of a younger Nana, before she'd been called "Nana" by so many childish lips, back when she'd been Miz Dowering, or Miz Mae to those who knew her well.

"You look pretty," Alec says, sweetheart that he is. "You _damn_ hot, Nana." Now that's too much, boy. Although it is nice to have her looks appreciated, as she had been quite vain as a young girl.

The next photo is of the girls at the diner where she'd waitressed for years. "Janina Reynolds," she says, putting one worn finger on a laughing woman's face.

Alec snorts beside her. "No, really?" He tugs the book towards himself to take a better look. "Oh, sure is. Damn. That Rena Smith over there? An'- an' that's Mara Sanchez! Dayum!"

"Mmhm," she says, amused, "We all old gals now, ain't we?" And she's the oldest of the bunch. She'd been the mother hen of the group, fussing over the younger girls, giving them a hand whenever they needed one, babysitting, taking the late shifts so that the girls with families could be home in the evenings. _They_ were her family, the girls at the diner.

"Naw, Nana," Alec says, putting his arm around her, "You never old to me."

"Sweet-talker," Nana tuts disapprovingly, but the lift at the corner of her mouth lets the boy know he ain't done no harm.

"What about her?" Alec asks, pointing at a blonde woman (just a girl, really) in the middle.

"Ah, her. That's Rosie," she says softly, "Rosabella Dickenson. Real beauty, that girl was, poor baby."

"Why 'poor baby'? What happened to her?"

"She was so young." Nana shakes her head sadly, "Husband in prison, and a little boy to raise. Then some sick bastard with a gun comes along and kills her. Just for no reason at all. She was only twenty-two."

"That is sad," Alec says. "That ain't right. That just ain't right."

"Yeah." She flips to the middle of the book, turning pages until she finds the picture she's looking for. She pulls it out of the clear plastic pocket. "This is her son. She doted on that boy. We all did. Cutest lil' thing you ever saw. Never knew what they meant by 'bundle of energy' 'til I met that boy."

The young boy looks up at Alec out of the faded old photograph, the vibrant blue hue of his eyes (his mother's eyes) undimmed by the passing of time. He shivers under the intensity of the gaze.

"He was the first of you, you know," Nana says, "My first foster child. Back then, the rules weren't like they are now, so when his momma died and there was no one else to take him in, I said I would."

"And they just gave him to you?"

Nana traces the boy's face with a finger worn down by too many years of scrubbing and washing for other people. "For a little while, until they could find his uncle, his daddy's _half_-brother, he turned out to be. There just weren't no other family. Eight months, he sat right there in my kitchen, watchin' me cook, an' me never knowin' what the hell was goin' through his mind. Didn't say a word, not a peep, the whole time he was with me. An' him such a bright, happy child, too, before his momma was killed. He was still sweet, after, not a word an' so _angry_ at the world, but sweet all the same, even after everything he'd been though."

Hardison's attention catches on one word. "Angry? Y'mean violent?"

Nana sighs, and shakes her head with a frown. "No," she says slowly, choosing her words, "It was just…You could see it in his eyes. He was so sad and _angry_ his momma was took from him. I look at that picture, and I see those eyes…I just can't get those eyes out of my head. He'd come an' stand next to me, just _lookin'_ at me with those big blue eyes, and I wouldn't know what he needed. I know he _wanted_ his momma - young child like that don't understand death - but I went half out of my wits tryin' to think of what else I could do for him. Then they found the uncle, so they came and took him away. That's the last I ever saw of him."

Alec looks down at the faded photograph in his hand. The expression in those blue eyes...It's something familiar and heartrending at the same time. "You want me to find him?"

Nana's hands shake. "Yes," she says, her voice cracking, "Find him, Alec. Find Eliot for me. I need to know what happened to him." _I need to know that I didn't fail him, too._

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hardison storms into Nate's apartment, fuming as only an over-caffeinated and sleep-deprived hacker can. This means that everyone else in the room ignores him; low threat level.

"You made my Nana cry!"

At those words, however, everyone looks up and pays attention. Pays attention to Hardison, who is standing dangerously close to Eliot and waving a small piece of paper around.

Eliot blinks slowly. "What?"

"You heard me," Hardison snarls, getting in the hitter's face.

Sophie instinctively reaches out a hand to pull Hardison away, Nate watches interestedly from behind his newspaper, and Parker settles in to watch the fun.

Eliot's response is delivered with a quiet, deadly calm. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Hardison slaps the paper, which turns out to be a photograph, into Eliot's chest with a hard thump. Eliot takes it, not taking his eyes off of Hardison's. Then he glances down. And freezes.

"Where did you get this?"

Hardison snorts rudely. "Nana. She wanted me to track down all her foster kids, and saved this one for last. Because he was _'special',"_ he sneers.

Eliot schools his face back into his usual "grumpy monkey face," as Parker calls it. "Here," he says, passing the picture back to Hardison in a less-than-deceptive offhand manner, "Your Nana probably wants this back." He turns back to his won-ton soup, slipping the delicate dumplings into the fragrant broth with movements less gentle and careful than normal.

Hardison huffs and crosses his arms. "Eliot!"

Eliot breathes deeply, in through his nose, out through his mouth. "What?"

Hardison sighs and tries to calm down a little. He puts down the photograph on the counter. "Least you could do is go an' see her. Not just send her money. An' don't even deny that. 'Cause I caught you at it. Wireless transfers? _Easy,_ man. Look, she wants to see _you._ She calls you her- her 'dearest boy,' y'know that? And now you won't even go see her?"

"I'm not that kid anymore, Hardison!" The pent-up anger, shock, hate (for himself, not for Hardison) bursts out of him. "I can't!"

Hardison just looks at him, looking older than the twenty-five year-old kid he normally is. "Neither of us are the kids we were back then, Eliot."

Eliot meets his gaze, then chuckles mirthlessly and looks away. "Oh yeah? How many people have _you_ killed, _Alec_? How many have you tortured? How many have you taken from their families just because some bastard with more power than he oughta paid you to do it? Huh? That's why I can't go back to her. I just can't."

Hardison slams both hands against the counter. "She won't care!"

"She would care." _Breathe in. Breathe out. Slow, slow._ "That's the problem. I can't do that to her."

"You were a foster kid?" Parker asks in a small voice, "Why didn't you tell us?"

Eliot can't look. Not at those big hazel eyes, brimming with hurt and betrayal. Yet another person hurt by him.

"It wasn't even a year," he says, swallowing hard. "She was my mama's friend, used to babysit me all the time, so it made sense for me to stay with her while they looked for my uncle after Mama died." He shrugs. "That's all."

"Your mom died?" Parker wants to know. Big, innocent eyes...

Eliot crosses his arms and leans back against the refrigerator. There's no getting out of this one, not now that the can's been opened.

"Yeah. I was five when she got shot. My dad was in prison for killing a man," his eyes flash around the room, daring them to show their shock, "so they started lookin' for my uncle. They found him, he raised me as his own, and that was it. My cousin thinks I'm her brother, and I never told her any different."

Parker tilts her head. "Your dad was a murderer?"

"Manslaughter," Hardison cuts in, "Heat of the moment, voluntary manslaughter. And self-defense. That's different from murder."

Eliot gives him a cool look. "It was murder. My dad wanted to marry my mama, an' her daddy wouldn't let her because he was a racist sonofabitch, so my dad shot him and eloped with my mama. That's not manslaughter. That's murder. The defense lawyer played the sympathy card for a lesser sentence 'cause they were so young an' my mama was pregnant during the trial. Far as I know, he's back in jail again. Never met him that I can remember."

The room is uncomfortably silent after Eliot's outburst, until Parker asks, "Are you gonna kill Hardison's Nana?"

"_What!?"_ Eliot sputters, "Parker, what the hell? _No!"_

"Then what does it matter if your dad killed someone? It's not genetic." She tilts her head. "Or is it? If you have kids, are they gonna kill people?" She snorts in amusement at the thought of assassin preschoolers...killer kindergarteners? That sounds better. They both start with 'K's.

"Parker, just...No."

"But- "

"It wouldn't do any harm if you went, Eliot," Sophie intercuts smoothly, overriding the impending firestorm, "It might even make an old woman happy."

Eliot shakes his head. "I'd just disappoint her," he says, "Like I said, I'm not that kid anymore."

"You were five, Eliot. No one's the same person they were when they were five," she exclaims, "God knows I'm not."

She remembers a dark little girl with big brown eyes and scabbed-over knees, desperately trying to be noticed by someone, anyone. She'd learned later that the only way to be noticed is to become someone else. But now...she's learning that she can be herself (whoever that is) and be seen and be loved for it.

Eliot grunts and serves up his steaming won-ton soup as an appetizer. "I'm not goin', so y'all can just stop tryin' ta make me."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

One Sunday afternoon a month later finds Eliot and Hardison on the front doorstep of the tiny yellow house with white shutters.

"This is a bad idea," Eliot growls, glaring daggers at the hacker, who grins. The other four members of the team had finally managed to wear Eliot down enough to agree to go with Hardison to visit Nana.

"That's an idea we _**need**_ to re_**visit,"**_ Sophie had said once during a job, "Or else we'll go completely ba_**nanas!"**_

Eliot had growled and rolled his eyes.

Hardison had set the electricity in his house to turn off and on to the rhythm of the theme song for some TV show_._ Eliot had growled and spent the rest of the week at a cabin he owns outside of town...at least until Hardison had temporarily fried his car with the EMF gun. On top of that, his phone had kept ringing every five and a half minutes, with its ringtone set to "This is the Song that Never Ends," as sung by Parker. When he had tried to turn it off, he had discovered that Hardison had done some do-hickey thing so that it wouldn't turn off. So he just took out the battery. (He would have thrown it at the wall, but he had grown kind of used to that particular phone - not that he ever wanted Hardison to know that.)

And Parker. Parker had made herself a nuisance. Period. "Why don't you wanna go see Nana? Was she mean to you? I wouldn't want to go back to any of my foster families." "How did your mom die? Do you miss her?" "Why is it called 'blue cheese'? It's not blue. It's kind of white with little grayish squigglies in it. It looks gross. And the 'blue' is spelled wrong." "Does Nana look like you or Hardison?" ("It doesn't work that way. And Parker, get out! I'm trying to take a shower! Alone! With the door and the curtain closed!")

Nate hadn't _said_ anything, nor had he actually _done _anything, but there were looks, and those spoke more eloquently than any other words or actions could. Eliot had found himself looking away uncomfortably more often than not.

So basically, to make them all shut up and leave him alone, he had agreed to come. And now, as he waits for Nana to answer the door, he's regretting it.

Hardison bumps his shoulder. "Relax, man. Smile or something."

Eliot bares his teeth at him.

"Or don't, actually. That's scary."

Right then, the door opens, and an elderly black woman looks out at them.

Eliot freezes, his mind going back to the memories of his childhood.

Mama working at the diner with Auntie Mae and the other girls, running around the place with the other kids, the waitress' kids, Mama singing to him, Mama dancing with him, looking so pretty as she laughed and spun (he'd never met a woman as pretty as his mama was in his memories)...and he remembers the day That Man came and shot Mama through the chest, the blood splurting all over and then...stopping. Stopping too late.

He remembers Auntie Mae, too. Auntie Mae laughing with Mama and the other girls from the diner, Auntie Mae teaching him to cook on her nights off when Mama had a shift, Auntie Mae gently pulling him away from Mama's cooling body, Auntie Mae holding his hand at the funeral, Auntie Mae talking to him while she cooked, not expecting him to reply, but letting him know that she was still there for him, still loved him, Auntie Mae waving goodbye from this very same doorstep, tears in her eyes.

"Hey, Nana," Hardison says, "Look who I found!"

Mae Dowering looks up at the man standing next to Alec. He seems familiar, those eyes, those haunted blue eyes...

"Eliot?" she gasps, "Eliot, is that you?" She puts her work-worn hand against the now-stubbled, once-smooth cheek and moves closer to hug him, to hold Rosie's baby boy in her arms again.

"Auntie Mae," Eliot breathes into her shoulder, face crumbling, "Auntie Mae."

Hardison looks on, feeling a little like he's intruding on a private moment. He's never seen Eliot this close to tears, not even back when he'd told them about working for Moreau. And "Auntie Mae"? Nana's been "Nana" as long as he can remember. Everyone called her that.

"Oh, it's a miracle!" Nana says tearfully, pulling away to look at Eliot more closely, "Oh, thank you God, that I lived to see this day!"

Hardison grins. "And I didn't even have to fake it this time!"

"What was that, boy?"

"Uh, nuthin'."

Nana reaches up to hug him, too. "Thank you, Alec. Thank you." She kisses him on the cheek, leaving behind traces of her lipstick.

He shrugs, suddenly embarrassed. "I wasn't even that hard. I mean, I work with the guy, y'know? We work together on the team."

Nana frowns, confused. "You work together?"

Hardison nods. "Yeah. Big coincidence, huh?"

Beside him, Eliot twitches a little, worried about what Hardison might have said about him to how he punches people for a living. And used to kill, maim, torture...you get his drift. And then there's the stealing stuff thing.

"It's a miracle," Nana repeats, glowing. "Where are my manners? Come inside, both of you." She ushers them in, clucking like a mother hen.

Eliot smiles. Auntie Mae hasn't changed a bit.

She fusses over them (well, Eliot, mostly), and brings out the refreshments. Growing up in Nana's house, Hardison remembers, the sweets were always strictly off-limits, except for special occasions.

"I'd love the recipe for this cake, Auntie Mae. It tastes exactly the way I remember. I never can get it right whenever I try to make it," Eliot says, a little more relaxed and clearly enjoying the rich pastry.

Nana leans close and says with a twinkle in her eye, "I don't tell just anyone this, but you are special," making Eliot flush (and boy, isn't it weird to see him looking and acting like a young kid, except, well, Hardison knows how easy it is to revert to just "Alec" in Nana's presence).

"The secret is a squeeze of lemon juice, just a squeeze," she says, as if imparting a great secret.

Eliot nods obediently, taking mental note of the ingredient.

Hardison stares at the two of them and asks himself how in the hell he didn't see it before.

Seriously.

Nana says she has something for Eliot, and bustles out of the room.

"See, it wasn't so bad, was it?" Hardison asks him and gets another glare in reply.

"Say 'I told you so,'" Eliot hisses, "Go ahead. Say it. See what happens."

Hardison grins. Score one for Team Hacker.

Nana comes back with her arms full of photo albums. Eliot jumps out of his seat to help her carry them. She sits herself down arthritically and opens the top book.

"Sit right here next to me, honey," she says and pats the couch to her left. Eliot obeys.

And just because Hardison's curious and feels just a tad left out, he sits down on her right.

Nana flips through the pages until she finds the one she wants. "Ah, there she is," she says, pointing at a pretty blonde. Hardison recognizes her as Rosie Dickinson, Eliot's mother. He sneaks a glance at Eliot.

Eliot stares at the picture of his mother. Growing up, he hadn't had any photographs of her, and over the years, his mental image of her face had sort of melted into a beautiful, sort of angelic blur. He swallows hard and curls his hand into a fist to keep from reaching out to touch the faded image.

"I remember the first time I met her. She come in, cartin' a screamin' baby in one arm and a suitcase with the other, an' told Cal that she was workin' there - _told_ him, didn't _ask_ for the job, mind you - and said she was gonna start that day." Nana shakes her head. "Mm-mm, she had spirit, that girl."

She points at the picture adjacent to the other, which is of herself holding a baby about a year old. "That's you, honey."

"Damn," Hardison says in false awe, "You actually smilin', brah."

For once, there's no response from the surly hitter. He stares at the photograph of his mother laughing at the camera, as bright and golden as he remembers, except he doesn't remember her being so young, just a slip of a girl, really, and he looks at the picture of himself in Nana's lap, looking...happy. Then he goes back to staring at his mother.

Nana reaches up and cups her hand around his neck (something most people never, ever have the opportunity to do). "Do you remember her at all, baby?" she asks gently.

Eliot works his mouth to reply but doesn't trust his voice not to shake, so he nods instead and shrugs.

Nana pulls out the photographs. "These are for you to keep, honey. You didn't take much of anything with you when you went to live with your uncle. There's more. You look through them and take the ones you like, okay?"

Eliot nods.

Nana slides the album onto Eliot's lap and stands with Hardison's help. Then she pulls him along with her into the kitchen and tells him to wash his hands so he can help her make dinner.

"You know what you did for that boy in there today?" she asks quietly, measuring out the flour for the biscuits.

Alec shrugs. It's weird hearing Eliot referred to as a "boy," but, he thinks, that's who he saw when he glanced behind him as Nana dragged him out of the room. A lost little boy. "I never thought about his family much. When he talked about them, it seemed like he was better off than the rest of us, me and Parker. Normal, ya know? I guess when he said 'family,' he meant his uncle an' his cousin."

Nana nods. "What happened to him, Alec?" She looks up at him, and suddenly, he remembers that Eliot had resisted coming because of how much he had changed, and what he had done to change so much.

"Lotsa stuff, Nana," he hedges, "He was in the military, y'know? And some other stuff. An' now he protects us. He's real good at it, too."

"And who protects him?"

Alec blinks, taken aback. "We do," he finally says, "We protect him. When he's not bein' stupid an' lets us."

Nana harrumphs. "Lemme guess. Stubborn as a mule, too proud to ask for help, an' if you offer, he'll fight you all the way."

"Yeah," Alec says laughing as he clumsily washes the greens for the salad, "That's him alright."

"Mm-hm," Nana nods sagely, "That he gets from his momma." Then she looks at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling, "I'm sure a smart boy like you's figured out how to make him let you help, hm?"

Alec grins. "Oh yeah." He mimics pulling puppet strings.

Nana shakes her head. That boy.

Alec sneaks a slice of tomato into his mouth and gets the back of his hand whacked by a wooden spoon.

"Sorry, Nana. I won't do it again."

"Sure you won't," Eliot says from the doorway, making Hardison jump and come like _that_ close to slicing his hand.

Eliot washes his hands, rolls up his sleeves, and shoves him over, none too gently. "Gimme that b'fore you cut one of your precious fingers off. Go play with your doo-dads." He shoos the indignantly muttering hacker off into the other room and begins chopping quickly and efficiently.

Nana gives him a sideways look. "Did you find somethin' you liked, honey?"

Eliot smiles shyly, "Yes, Auntie Mae. I did." He puts the knife down and looks at her. "Thank you."

Nana puts down her spoon and reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind Eliot's ear. "Now, you don't be a stranger, alright? You come see me again, an' I'll tell you all about those pictures, things I remember from those days. How about that?"

Eliot nods. "I'd like that."

"Mm-hm," Mae says, and turns back to her merrily bubbling pot. "Put those tomatoes in now, baby. Just like that."

"Yes, ma'am."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

AN: I wrote more of this one. Post it tomorrow?


	5. TW: Brother From Another Mother

Summary: Hardison has trouble getting into his teammates' hospital rooms because he is obviously not related. Same verse as "Lookin' At Me With Those Big Blue Eyes."

* * *

**Brother From Another Mother**

Hardison is black. The rest of the team is white (well, Sophie can be whatever she feels like, whenever she feels like it, and Eliot is maybe not all white - something he'd said before about somebody being racist had stuck in Hardison's mind - but for the sake of argument, let's just put them in the "whites" category,).

This is not generally a problem. None of them have any problem working with him because of his color. No, the complaints are usually about his plans, his food, his attitude, his...whatever. It's not about color.

But when someone gets hurt badly enough to have to stay at the hospital, and it's family-only, then there's a problem.

Hardison always has to make up some bizarre story; like when they wanted to go see Nate at the rehab center, he'd had to pretend to be Eliot's _partner _(okay, okay, that was funny because it annoyed Eliot like hell), or that time he dressed up as the janitor to see Eliot when he hit his head and wouldn't wake up, or that time he was married to Parker (that one was a nice one) when Eliot got shot and bled too much (are you seeing a theme here? Eliot gets hurt a lot, but hospital stays only happen when he's unconscious and can't argue).

And then there are IDs to make and maintain, like who is whose brother and who's married to whom, and all that.

So when he wakes up groggy one day with a dull, throbbing pain in his side and sees Eliot sitting next to him, wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose and reading a book, he groans because dammit, he's gonna have to make sure that alias holds up.

Eliot has to be a mind-reader or something because he says, "IDs are okay. I told 'em I'm your foster brother. They're too busy to check up on that." He turns the page. "And besides, it's true."

The first thought that crosses Hardison's mind when he hears that is "Why didn't I think of that?"

The second thought is "Ha! I knew he loved me. Like a brother, that is. Not in any other hinky kinda way."

His third thought: "Maaaannnn, what did they put in the IV?"

"Morphine," Eliot replies, turning another page. "Good stuff. Go back to sleep."

Hardison's last thought before drifting off is "Did I say that out loud?"

Eliot looks up from his book at the snoring hacker and shakes his head, chuckling a little. Kid can't hold his morphine.

He should update Nate, and maybe Auntie Mae too, while he's at it. He'd already called her and told her that Hardison had gotten hurt, but that he'd be alright. At least, that's what the doctor had said. But now that the kid has woken up, Eliot feels better about believing that. It has been a long couple of days.

Damn idiot kid.

_Kid brother,_ says a traitorous voice in his mind as he claps a hand on the sleeping Hardison's shoulder and stands to make his calls.

He'll never admit it, but Hardison was right. He does love him...like a brother.


	6. TW: From the Letter That I Got Last Fall

Summary: Back in prison again, Eliot's father receives a letter from his son. Same verse as "Lookin' At Me With Those Big Blue Eyes" and "Brother From Another Mother."

The title and many of the details about Eliot's dad's past are from Christian Kane's song "Spirit Boy." Most of this story does not feature Eliot in person, but I think it's Leverage-y enough to stick in here. It's part of the verse, anyway.

* * *

**From the Letter That I Got Last Fall**

Billy Two Wolves doesn't get mail, as a rule. No family (at least not any who cares enough to write), no friends (never was one to let people get close); he's a loner. A lone wolf, so to speak.

When he'd been living in his one bedroom/one bathroom apartment in the city, he'd had bills, he'd had ads for local stores and restaurants, and he'd had the occasional credit card offer, but he had never had an honest-to-god personal letter before.

Now, here in prison, where he's been for the last five years (he'd been sentenced to seven, but his time had been cut down due to good behavior), for a crime he didn't commit (wrong place, wrong time, already had manslaughter on his rap sheet), a letter is the last thing he expects to receive. But one day, he does.

It comes as a surprise when the prison warden calls him in.

He hadn't done anything wrong. He'd learned to keep his head down for the most part and his nose clean the first time he'd been sent to prison as a kid, and things hadn't changed much when he'd gone back in twenty years later. He's pretty well-built for his age, and once it had been established that he does in fact know how to use his fists, extremely well at that, no one had bothered him. Much. If they did, they didn't again. Other than that, though, he's one of the quietest the inmates in that prison.

So he doesn't know why the warden would want to see him.

As the guard escorts him to the office, the guy attempts to make conversation: "I don't like you. You're too quiet. I don't like the quiet ones. They're the ones who do crazy shit. You killed a man once didn'tcha?"

Billy nods and keeps walking. He could have smiled and nodded ("smile and nod, just smile and nod," they tell you when you're supposed to be polite and you don't know what to say), but then the guard would've smacked the smile off of his face. That's something he can do without.

The guard goes off on a monologue about quiet, crazy people.

Pretty soon (but not soon enough), they're in the warden's office, and Billy is sitting in the metal chair in front of the big wooden desk with his hands cuffed to its arms.

"You're getting out in a month, aren't you, Billy?" the warden begins.

Billy doesn't say anything. The warden has his file. He can just look it up.

The warden nods, as if Billy had confirmed something he'd been thinking. "You don't talk much," he says.

Billy thinks about replying, but decides to keep his mouth shut until he knows what the hell is going on. Is there a law against being quiet now?

"Most of the guys in here, they talk about their families," the warden goes on, "their girlfriends, their kids, their goddamned mamas. But not you."

Billy clears his throat. "Don't got none. Sir."

It's galling to address a man younger than he is as "sir," but there ya go. Spend the best days of your youth in a jail cell and you've just lost any chance of becoming a respected member of the community.

The warden, a balding man in his forties, leans back in his chair and examines him with piggish, watery grey eyes. He's holding an envelope in his hand, and he taps the bottom edge of it on the cover of a folder on the table that Billy recognizes as his file because it has his name on little tab on the side: William Two Wolves, Jr.

_Tap-tap. Tap-tap,_ goes the envelope in a syncopated rhythm. _Tap-tap._

Billy sits and lets the man inspect him. He takes the opportunity to look the man over in his turn, yet again. The warden hasn't changed much in the five years Billy has been an inmate at his prison - he's just gotten balder and fatter, if anything. He still has that air of someone doing his job, not loving it, but not hating it, trudging from day to day to earn that paycheck. Billy doesn't like him (how can he like the guy holding the reins on him?), but he doesn't hate him either. Like the guy's attitude says, he's just doing his job. Besides, this prison isn't as bad as the one Billy had been in before, when his crime (the one he'd actually done, not simply been accused and found guilty of like this time) had been worse and his sentence harsher.

"You received a letter," the warden finally says, fiddling with the envelope in his hand.

Billy can see that it has been opened, in accordance to the prison's rules about mail sent to inmates, but the sender's name and address are on the side facing the warden. He doesn't know who it would send him a letter. He doesn't know many people on the outside who'd want to write to him.

"It's from a man named Dickinson." The warden waits, as if waiting for a reaction. The waiting's useless because he doesn't get one.

"This Eliot Dickinson guy here, he says he's your son."

Now that, that gets a reaction.

Eliot. _Eliot. _His _son_ Eliot.

Billy hadn't thought about him in a long time. No, that's a lie. He'd _tried_ not to think about the infant son he'd never held in his arms, the little boy with his mother's eyes of whom he had only photographs and visits through bulletproof glass windows. Back then, he'd thought, fifteen more years, twelve more, until he can hold his son in his arms for the first time.

But then came word that Rosie, his beautiful Rosie, was dead - killed, shot, like some kind of karmic retribution for the thing he did - and when they'd asked him if there were any relatives to take the kid in, he'd thought, well, no, not really. There was that older half-brother of his, but he didn't know where the hell he was; it had been years since he'd seen him. But they'd found him, and little Eliot had been sent to him, and that was that.

No more letters, no more phone calls, no more visits.

He'd come out, and he'd thought, what kid wants an ex-con for a dad? So he'd stayed away, hoped that his son wouldn't remember, wouldn't find out about his shameful parentage.

Ah, the rashness of youth. If he'd known what he knows now, what he'd known after all those hard years in prison, he wouldn't have done what he'd done back then when he was a seventeen-year-old half-Indian kid from the wrong side of the tracks in love with the prettiest, richest girl in town. He wouldn't have asked Rosabella to run away with him, wouldn't have shot up her daddy when he'd objected to his daughter marrying a Cherokee boy.

No, sir, he would have waited. Billy's good at waiting now. Ruthlessness, going in guns blazing, that's not his way anymore.

But now, it seems, Eliot does know who his father is, and where he is, too. Billy doesn't know how he feels about that.

"So he is yours?" the warden asks, interrupting his thoughts.

Billy nods.

"Well then. I guess you can have this." The envelope is handed over to him, but he doesn't open it. He will, but not yet, not until he's back in the privacy of his cell. "He says he'll meet you outside when you walk outta here."

A flash of anger flickers in his chest at the reminder that all correspondence is opened and examined (this violation of his privacy had never bothered him before when he didn't have any mail, but now that he has received this letter, a letter from his only son, he does care). He quickly tamps it down before the warden decides to take the letter away from him.

"Next month," he says quietly.

"The twenty-forth," the warden agrees, checking the date in Billy's file.

Billy doesn't remember the walk back to his cell. He remembers sinking down on his pallet, holding the envelope in shaking hands, just staring at the writing on the front.

_Eliot Dickinson,_ it says in neatly printed handwriting, a man's writing. The P.O. box is in Boston. So his son is all grown (all he knows of the man is that happy little boy on the other side of the glass) and living in Boston.

Dickinson. That's the name Rosabella Spencer had changed her last name to after the trial, to distance herself and her son from the notoriety of being related to both a killer and his victim. She'd still written, still called and visited, but to everyone she knew in her new, albeit short, life, she was Rosie Dickinson, the pretty waitress at the local diner. Eliot, though, the name Rosie'd given him on his birth certificate was Two Wolves. Eliot Spencer Two Wolves.

Billy brushes his thumb over the black ink lettering and wonders if his son remembers his real name, or if this is the name he has used all his life. He doesn't know if his brother, his half-brother, told the boy anything about his past or not.

He stares at the letters and wonders what kind of man Eliot turned out to be.

Well, only one way to find out.

He pulls the folded sheet of paper out of the envelope, carefully, carefully, then unfolds it, first the top third, then the bottom.

It's the same clear handwriting.

_Dear Billy,_ it begins, _I hope you won't think it disrespectful to call you by your given name, sir, but the thing is, I grew up calling your brother Bobby "Dad." I would like you to know that he and his wife were very good to me, and raised me as one of their own children. My cousin Sarah doesn't know that I'm not actually her brother, even now, after both of them have passed."_

The rest of the letter is a brief sketch of Eliot's life, very brief. He'd spent an unspecified length of time in the military (like his adopted father), and now, he works for a consulting company.

The next-to-the-last sentence simply states what the warden had told him, that Eliot would like to meet Billy outside the prison gates when he gets out, if it's alright by him.

The last sentence tells Billy that he can write back if he wants to, and to just address it to the P.O. box on the envelope.

It's signed, _Your son, Eliot._

_Your son_. His son.

All Billy's life, he'd been disowned as a bad apple by the people who should have loved him most; his father, his mother, his brother - and he'd thought that his son would unerringly join those ranks. But now, it seems, he was wrong.

Billy sits for what seems like an hour (time passes so slowly in prison), then pulls a pencil and a sheet of paper out of his meager pile of belongings. He hadn't had anyone to write to before, but now he's glad that he'd bought the pencil and pad of paper (to draw on - he spends most of his time sketching) from the prison commissary. He has no envelopes or stamps, but he can buy them later on in the week when he's allowed to make his weekly purchases.

Having planned that much ahead, he settles down to write his letter. And gets stuck.

He's never written a letter before, not a real one. Love letters, sure, but they'd all been full of "I love you," "I can't live without you," and "you are my soul" - typical teenage fare - and not much else.

What the hell do you write to a son you haven't seen in over thirty years? _Hi son, it's been a long while, hasn't it? It was good hearing from you. Well, I've been sitting here in prison, last few years, rotting my ass off, while you've been making a life for yourself._

He sits there and scratches his head and twirls his pencil around and around while he thinks of something to write.

Well, shit.

He considers writing about hobbies and music and favorite movies, normal stuff, and maybe keep the prison parts out of it, but then he thinks, _nah, that's lame._

He's not a man who talks much. Words aren't really his thing.

So he sticks to what he knows.

He draws. He draws the love of his life, the way he remembers her best, smiling so prettily with the grinning little boy in her lap. He doesn't draw the glass that had been separating them, but instead concentrates on the shape of the boy's bright blue eyes, making sure they match his mother's exactly, works on getting the shade of her hair just right, tries to draw their expressions the way he remembers them.

When he's done, the words still don't come, so he props the colored pencil and graphite drawing up against the wall and stares at it from his bed.

At the commissary a couple of days later, he writes "envelope" and "stamp" on his order form. After a moment's contemplation, however, he puts a "2" in front and adds an "s" to each word. "2 envelopes" and "2 stamps." Impulsive purchases. He hasn't acted on his impulses in a good long while, but something tells him that this is a good one.

He still doesn't have any words for his son, but prison mail takes a long time to get to the inmate, and a long time to go out into the real world. Eliot might think that his old man doesn't care about him if he takes too long sending his reply.

So he folds the lovingly drawn portrait of his...his family into thirds and slides it carefully into the envelope. He addresses it to Eliot Dickinson at the P.O. box in Boston and writes his own name and prison address at the top left corner. He places the stamp in the top right corner, exactly one-sixteenth of an inch from the edge. He doesn't bother sealing the envelope - it'll only be cut open and read by the prison mail checkers anyway.

Then he waits. He waits, both eager and nervous; he's never shown anyone his drawings before. Sure, the guards see them when they check his cell, but they don't care. He's just one of the prisoners, and drawing isn't against the rules.

As he waits, words come to him, memories, thoughts, and he puts them down on paper. The words don't always come out right, but he writes them down anyway. He writes about the first time he saw Rosie, and about learning that he was going to be a father, seeing their baby for the first time. He writes about being sorry that he never had the chance to be there for him, never had a chance to be a dad.

He sends this one two weeks before his release date.

There's no reply from Eliot.

The two weeks pass slowly, and the other inmates rib him about why he's so glum about getting out. He just sends them a glare and that shuts them up for a while.

He walks out of there, his civvie clothes feeling strange after so much time spent in the orange jumpsuit. His stomach twists, and he's almost afraid to look to see if his son is there, waiting for him. He wonders if he'd recognize him, whether he'll look more like him or Rosie.

When he has the courage to tear his gaze from the ground and look around at freedom, he doesn't see anyone at first. He doesn't know how to feel about that. Disappointed, maybe? Resigned?

Then he sees him. His son. Eliot.

He looks just like him, Billy thinks, only lighter. Lighter hair, lighter skin. Looks white, like his mama.

He's wearing his hair long, down to his shoulders, like Billy used to, before they cut it off the first time he went to prison. Cowboy hat, sunglasses, plaid, boots. Arms crossed, he leans back against his Toyota Camry.

Billy raises his eyebrow at that. Toyota? A Camry? Doesn't seem his style. But then, he doesn't know too much about his son anyway, does he? Maybe he likes little foreign cars.

Eliot walks forward to meet him.

They shake hands. That's what men do. That's what strangers do.

When Eliot takes his sunglasses off, Billy sees that he still has Rosie's eyes, but he's grown into them, made them his own. There's a darkness in them, like maybe they're not so different after all.

Then the man smirks. He tilts his head towards the little Toyota and says, "It's a rental. Got a 'Stang back home."

For the first time in years, Billy laughs, and his son laughs with him.


	7. SLF: The Most Important Role

Summary: Sophie had felt woefully underprepared for the most important role of her life: Mother. This story is in the same verse as my story "Sticky Little Fingers," which has Eliot as an "uncle." You don't have to read it to understand this one.

AN: So. Sophie POV. That means Brit-speak. Tell me if I'm off so I know for future reference.

Also, last chapter, I had Eliot saying (his one-liner!) that he has a 'Stang. Apparently, I suck at car-speak. He has a Charger, Challenger, something like that, not a Mustang. Now, let's all close our eyes and pretend that he has more than one car, okay? Heh. Whoops. But that line has a nice ring to it, so I won't change it.

* * *

**The Most Important Role**

Sophie had never expected to be a mother. She had "been" mothers for cons before, but she had never expected to really be one.

The anxiousness of waiting for the pregnancy test and the mixture of amazement, disbelief, nervousness, and elation when the three minutes were up and the little pink line appeared.

The morning sickness and back pain (ugh, Nate paid for that, she made sure of it) and _cravings _(thank you, Eliot). The seventeen-hour labor (Nate really, _really_ paid for that one).

Finally having her beautiful baby girl in her arms, and watching her family lavish love and attention on her (Eliot especially, the big softy, practically melted into a puddle of goo the first time he held little Irene and looked into her big brown eyes).

Diaper-changing, midnight feedings, being afraid to trim the tiny, tiny fingernails.

The uncertainty in everything she does as a parent because she doesn't want Irene to end up like her, and the fear and worry every time the baby coughed, or god forbid, _sneezed_.

Crawling, walking, the terrible twos.

She had never thought that she would ever be a mother, yet here she is, with a gorgeous dark-haired little angel who looks just like her, talks just like her, and acts just like her.

It's the first day of school, and Sophie has never been this nervous, this terrified. Irene, on the other hand, is ecstatic. She runs in and out of her room to ask if she should wear this outfit or that, how she should do her hair, and will Mummy _please_ tie this for her.

They're running late, Hardison says, poking his head in (with his eyes closed) and tapping his new something-or-other-powered watch, and Parker straps Irene in securely into her pink princess backpack (Sophie checks it later and removes the lock picks, dynamite mini-pack, and Exacto blade). Eliot solemnly hands Irene a rhinestone-studded lunchbox and tells her to share with the other kids because it'll help her make friends.

Nate's waiting in the car with the engine on, sipping his coffee and reading the morning paper, calm as can be. Sophie fusses at him - it's Irene's first day of school, and how can he be so bloody calm about it? Nate shrugs, puts his paper away, and looks in the rearview mirror.

"Ready, Irene?"

"Ready, Daddy!"

"She's ready," Nate says softly to Sophie, "She's ready."

"I'm not."

Nate pats her hand and pulls out of the driveway. "I know, Soph. But we gotta let her grow up."

"I'm a big girl!" Irene chirps from the backseat, "I'm going to school!"

Sophie looks at Nate, then puts her Mummy face on. "Yes, you are, darling! Aren't you excited?"

"Yes, Mummy. I love you."

There are words also that she'd never thought she'd ever really mean. But now, every time she says them, she means them more each time.

"I love you, too, baby."


	8. SLF: Always an Uncle, Never a Dad

AN: Posting a little early because I need to go to bed.

Summary: Eliot will never have kids. He's content with being the best, most awesome uncle in the world. Same verse as "Sticky Little Fingers" and "The Most Important Role."

* * *

**Always an Uncle, Never a Dad**

Eliot will never have kids. He's seen too much bad in the world to want to bring a clean, innocent baby into it. He's done too much bad to think for even a moment that he's good enough to have a kid, to raise a kid, at least a good kid, and not one like him.

His friends, though, they can have all the kids they want, and those kids will have an awesome uncle to give them piggyback rides, bake them double chocolate chip cookies, and buy them toys that make loud, obnoxious noises.

The first time he'd held little baby Irene in his arms, something deep inside of him had cracked. No, not cracked - the team had done that. No, when he had looked into those big brown eyes, the wall inside of him had melted, that shield of ice that had grown around his soul in those years when he hadn't felt anything. It had melted, and he had known, right then and there, that he would be at the mercy of this little girl as long as he lived.

As always, whenever he had _known_ something, he was right. From her very first hour, little Irene Ford had her Uncle Eliot firmly wrapped (no, not wrapped - tied in a pretty little bow) around her tiny, perfect pinky finger.

It wasn't very long before Eliot became an uncle once again. Little Carat "Carrie" Hardison stole his heart away in much the same manner that Irene had. Franc "Frankie" and Ruble "Ruby" Hardison soon followed, a few years apart.

In each case, Uncle Eliot took one look in those dark chocolate eyes and gave up all resistance, in a way that was at the same time both uncharacteristic and perfectly typical of his attitude in life.

Sure, they had laughed, his team, his friends. But the almost ridiculously doting devotion, the lavished attention, they didn't cease as the kids got older, oh, no. In fact, they only got worse. None of them had ever suspected that Eliot Spencer would be so..._susceptible_ to big, innocent eyes, especially if accompanied by "Pleeeease, Uncle Eliot."

Nate and Sophie, Hardison and Parker, they had laughed and called him a "big softy," but in the end, the joke was on them: they were the ones who had to put up with the over-sugared, hyperactive children at night, the ones who had to scold and silence the loud toys he purposely bought his nieces and nephew, the ones who had to deal with "but Uncle Eliot said..."

He has the last laugh.

"Just you wait until you have kids," they threaten, but in his heart of hearts, he knows. He knows that it will never happen. He'll never have children of his own. He wouldn't do that kind of damage to whatever poor soul happened to do something so bad as to be punished by being reincarnated as his kid.

He just wouldn't make a good dad. He'd screw the poor kid up.

He figures he'll stick to what he knows: how to be the best, most awesome uncle in the world. He's got that covered.


	9. SLF: The Leverage Family Business

Summary: Leverage Consulting and Associates, Jr. The next generation of cons. This is in the same verse as "Sticky Little Fingers," "The Most Important Role," and "Always an Uncle."

AN: This is all Sci F.I. Warper's fault: "Now I have mental images of all those munchkins making up their own crew and her leading it and...oh dear god."

Pairing warning: This verse is Nate/Sophie and Parker/Hardison. Sorry if it bothers you, but I like to write it once in a while, even though I ship Parker/Eliot. I just wanted to write Eliot as an uncle, and this was the only way to keep it in the family.

AN 2: Just to clarify, in case there was any confusion (I know at least two reviewers are confused!), I have different verses in this collection. Yeah, I know, confusing. Sorry. The stories with Nate/Sophie and Hardison/Parker (these are the ones with Eliot as an uncle and features Irene & Co) are in the "Sticky Little Fingers" verse. The ones where Eliot was Nana's first foster kid are in the...let's call it the "Spirit Boy" verse. And I will be adding a sequel to the Kimi story. If you get confused, just read the summaries. The connecting stories are mentioned by title. Sorry if I confused you!

Reviews: I will reply to them as soon as I can get to them. Thank you all so much for your support!

* * *

**The Leverage Family Business**

"Carrie, can you start the meeting, please?" asks Irene Ford, sitting down in her father's chair with a glass of apple juice. She swirls it before taking a sip, just like she's seen Daddy swirl his glass of whiskey.

"The mark," says Carrie Hardison, standing in front of the TV, "is Tony Rasher, fourth grader, Ms. Linten's class, Room 403." She clicks the remote.

A yearbook photograph of the unpleasant-looking nine-year-old fills the screen. Carrie clicks again and a mess of Photoshopped red lines crosses his face.

"Ick," burbles the baby of the bunch, the toddler Ruby.

"Ick is right," Frankie says, agreeing with his baby sister. "Double ick."

"Guys, can I finish?" huffs Carrie, with the kind of exasperation only an older sister can manage.

"Yes, keep going, Carrie," Irene says, "Just ignore them."

"Tony Rasher is really mean," Carrie continues, "Last week, he took my friend Lisa's lunch. The week before that, he took Kristin's and tripped her. She hit her face on the ground and it bled like, _a lot._ All over. He hurts other kids all the time. We need to take him down. He's mean."

"Yes," Irene says, "we know. That's why we're doing this. Because the grown-ups won't take care of it."

"Irene," Carrie says, a little unsure, "Maybe we should tell Mom and Dad and your parents and Uncle Eliot."

"No," Irene says determinedly, "We can do this."

"What if we get in trouble?" Frankie asks. "What if they catch us and lock us up and put us in jail and stuff?"

Irene huffs, exasperated. "They don't put kids in jail, Frankie," she says. "Besides, if we do this right, they won't catch us. And we will do it right. Right?" She gives them her best Uncle Eliot glare.

"So what's our plan?" Carrie asks after a silent look-argument with her brother.

Irene quotes her father. "The plan is to take away his business, his possessions, and his name."

"Hack," says little Ruby, "Hack hack." She chews on her stuffed turtle. "Hack." The poor little turtle dangles from her mouth by its tail. She grins up at her siblings and cousin.

"Yes," Irene says, being very supportive of the littlest thief of the bunch, "Good idea, Ruby. We can hack the teacher's email and...Hm." She pauses to think. "Yeah. I'm thinking the Dora the Explorer Turnaround."

"I hate Dora the Explorer," Frankie says. "I like Sponge Bob."

"It's the name of the con, stupid," Carrie huffs.

"Hey, don't call him that, Carrie," Irene says. "He didn't know. What about the Double Chocolate Chip Cookie Run?"

"I'm hungry," Frankie says.

"So'm I," Carrie agrees. "Do we have any Uncle Eliot cookies left?"

"Guys," Irene groans dramatically, "Can we concentrate on a plan here?"

"That's your job," Frankie says. Carrie nods in agreement.

Irene growls.

"Awrrrrrrrrrhhhhhh!" Ruby mimics.

"I didn't say it like that, Ruby," Irene says coldly. "I sounded more like a lady."

"No, you didn't," Frankie says, "You sounded like a dinosaur."

"She sounded like Uncle Eliot," giggles Carrie.

"Awrrrrrrrrhhh!" Frankie growls.

"Arrrrrrggggghhhhh!" copies Carrie.

Ruby laughs and joins in. "Aiiiieeeeeee!" She claps her hands gleefully.

"Why me?" wails Irene, pulling her hair theatrically. "Shhh, guys, be quiet. You'll wake Uncle Alec up and then we'll all get in trouble."

"What's goin' on in here?" Alec Hardison asks, coming into the living room, having been woken from a very well-deserved nap.

"Too late," Irene mutters.

"Nothing," say the three older children with beatific expressions. Ruby scoots over on her diaper-clad bottom and turns the television screen off before her father can see it.

"Uh-huh," Hardison says, rubbing his eyes. "I'll just pretend I believe you guys and we won't tell your mommies that I took a nap, okay?"

"Okay, Uncle Alec," Irene says, the diplomat of the group. "Tell them what?"

"'S why I like you, kid," Hardison says, and ruffles her hair as he passes by her on the way to the fridge for some orange soda.

Irene wrinkles her nose and pats her hair down while her cousins roll their eyes at her fussiness.

"Potty, Daddy," Ruby announces proudly.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"So," Eliot says over a late-night beer after the kids have all been put to bed, "You know the job your kids pulled this week?"

"They what?!"

"What," Eliot says, his blue eyes twinkling, "you didn't see the signs?"

"What signs?" Parker says threateningly in a voice very similar to her "mom voice."

Eliot shrugs, not intimidated in the very least. "The very distinctive ones."

"Like what?" Sophie exclaims.

Eliot ticks them off on his fingers: "Like, sneaking their harnesses into their school backpacks, Carrie asking Hardison how to turn the power off in a building using her phone - 'hypothetically just in case,' the power outage in only the school that was caused by a 'short circuit,' the fire drill the day after that, all the secret whispering they've been doing...Yeah," he nods, "I'd say it sure looks like they pulled a job this week."

"What did they do?" Nate asks.

Eliot shrugs. "Beats me."

Offended at having been halfway accused of assisting their kids do a con, Hardison pulls up the school principal's email. "Oh, boy," he says. "Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh, what?" Parker asks.

"What did they do?" Irene's parents want to know.

Hardison looks up form his computer with a grim expression. "They got a kid expelled. Humiliated him, stole from him, and got him expelled."

The room explodes in a collective cry of _"What?!"_ from the parents while Eliot laughs and slaps his thigh with his hand. "That's awesome," he cackles.

"It's the kid who's been bothering Carrie and her friends," Hardison says, pointedly ignoring his friend.

"You're telling me our kids got another kid expelled?' Nate repeats, just to be sure.

Hardison nods dourly. "Looks like."

"Sounds like they took matters into their own hands," Eliot says, "Took care of the bully themselves. Didn't get caught. That's some good work right there."

The others glare at him.

"What?"

"You're just saying that because you're not a mom," Parker hisses.

Eliot snorts. "Of course I'm not a mom. I don't have breasts. I sure like 'em, but..." The perpetual bachelor trails off at the looks his team is sending him.

"You know what I mean!" Parker whisper-yells, slamming her hands on the table. She catches her bottle of orange soda (stolen from her husband's stash) before it topples over.

"Personally," Eliot says, "I think it's hilarious."

"This isn't funny, Eliot," Sophie says, "If they get caught, they could get expelled themselves!"

"They're not gonna get caught. Come on," Eliot says, suddenly serious, "If you don't want them to follow in our footsteps, then stop teaching them how to con people. They learned this from us. And don't deny it. You know they did."

The others look grim. It's true. They have taught their children to grift, to pick pockets, to hack, and to plan. Uncle Eliot has taught them how to defend themselves. This is their fault.

"Look," the hitter continues, "From my standpoint, as the only non-parent here, I think we're teaching them to be good people. We're teaching them to help people that the world is screwing over. This kid is a bully. He's gonna grow up to be a bully, the kind of people _we_ take down. Irene, Carrie and Frankie and Ruby, they're just starting young. They can nip these guys in the bud. That's strategy. For my part, I'm proud of 'em 'cause they took that initiative and took care of the problem themselves."

There's a pause while the Leverage PTA moms and dads absorb this.

Then, "What do you mean, Ruby?"

"Uh," Eliot says, "I'm pretty sure Ruby was in on this, too."

"But she's a baby!" Hardison exclaims.

"Yeah," Eliot says, "So? She's your kid. She's Parker's kid. Of course she's gonna start early. Same goes for the rest of them."

"Crap."

"So what are we going to do about it?" Sophie asks. "We can't teach them to be normal when _we're_ a bit far from normal ourselves."

Nate leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers. "We're going to keep doing what we've been doing," he says finally.

"We're going to steal our kids' brains?" Parker asks.

"No. We're going to teach them to be good people. Even if it means going about it in...an alternative way." Nate pauses. "What do you think, gang?"

Eliot lifts his bottle in a salute. "They're your kids. But I love 'em like my own. I'm in."

Sophie nods. "Something tells me there's no stopping them now, anyway. Irene especially. That's your fault, dear," she says to Nate as an aside.

"What?" Nate says, "That's not my fault."

"I'm in, if you are, babe," Hardison says to his wife, who raises her hand and asks, "So are we or are we not stealing our kids' brains? Because that's what it sounds like."

"Were you even listening?" Hardison whispers, "Man just said no. We're teaching them to be like us."

"But I don't want them to turn out like me," Parker says with a small frown.

"Baby," Hardison says, kissing her temple, "I want all three of our kids to turn out just like you."

"Four," Parker says distractedly, picking at the label of her soda bottle.

Hardison freezes and his mouth works around _"What?"_

"Oh, Parker!" Sophie exclaims, "You're expecting again?"

"Yeah," Parker says, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, Hardison. Sorry. I'm pregnant. Again."

"Every time," Hardison says, shaking his head. "Every time, this happens. You just _forget_ to tell me. Woman." He kisses her, this time on the lips. "I love you."

Nate raises his glass in congratulations at the younger couple. He and Sophie share a kiss of their own. One little hellraiser is enough for them.

Eliot claps Hardison's back, grinning madly. "She'll figure it out eventually, man. One of these days, she'll remember to tell you first."

"An' exactly how many are you expecting us to have?" the hacker asks.

Eliot shrugs. "As many as you can crank out, ya stud. Nieces and nephews, I love 'em."

"Why don't you just have some of your own, huh? Buncha little mini-Spencers runnin' around, instead of stealin' ours."

The hitter laughs. "No way, man. I ain't that dumb." His phone beeps once. After checking the message, he stands up and grabs his jacket. "Gotta go, guys. See y'all tomorrow. An' don't tell the kids I ratted them out."

The others share sly, calculating looks.

"Where are you going in such a hurry tonight?" Sophie asks.

"Date with a flight attendant," Eliot replies smugly. "She has a one-night stopover. Later."

Once the hitter is out of the building Hardison leans over and says to his wife, "So."

"Mm-hm," she nods and grins impishly. "I think it's time for a round of 'Uncle Eliot said.'"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

AN: The baby name contest begins...now! (Keep in mind that Carrie is short for Carat, Frankie is short for Franc, and Ruby is short for Ruble.)


	10. G: Saved a Wretch Like Me

AN #1: First of all, thank you for the wonderful baby name ideas last chapter. Now I'm gonna have to give the Hardisons quintuplets or something so I can use all those great names. Kidding, kidding. Hm. I can't pick my favorites off the top of my head, but if you think of a new one, just shoot me a PM or something, okay? I'm still taking suggestions.

**Look here:** New verse!

Long AN for a long fic: Okay, so there's no denying that I'll watch just about anything Christian Kane has been in if I can find it, right? So I saw _Rescue 77_ (the Always Christian Kane fansite is awesome, by the way, hint-hint). I then looked around for _Rescue 77 _fanfic, but couldn't find a whole lot, much less a category for it on this site. Thus, I'm going to put my giant of a _Rescue 77/Leverage_ crossover story here. It fits the theme (family), and besides, I make up the rules for _my_ birthday countdown anyway. So there.

You can skip the next paragraph if you've seen the show.

There were only eight episodes of _Rescue 77_, so there's not that much to go on, character-wise, but I did the best I could on what we got. Even if you don't know the show, it _should_ make sense once you read this: Basically, Wick Lobo - CK's character - is a paramedic, and in the last episode, he and Ryan - one of his partners - were locked in a chemical lab after an explosion, and Bell - another partner - had to make the decision to let the door close on them so the chemicals wouldn't get into the city's air. The chemical Wick and Ryan were exposed to was methyl chloride. While it is true that it may cause birth defects, but I made it more dramatic than the truth (according to Wiki) for this story, pretty much because they did it on the show.

This takes place in _Leverage_-time, which means that it's a future-fic for _Rescue 77_ (1999). It also takes place mostly in the _Rescue 77 _world, which may confuse some people. If you don't know the show, just pretend that Wick is an OC who is Eliot's twin brother (basically because he is), and Bell and Ryan are his friends. That and the above are all you really need to know because like I said, it's a future-fic, so I took many, many liberties. Also, Eliot comes off as sort of a jerk in the beginning, but just wait for the reveal, okay? I love Eliot. I wouldn't make him a bad guy.

I hope the un-_Leverage_-ishness doesn't bother anyone too much. I really would have posted this in the _Rescue 77_ crossover section if there was one. (Speaking of crossovers, I also have a _Close to Home_ one - with much more Leverage in it than this - that I plan on posting in this collection. Sorry if you haven't seen it, but the way I wrote it, you should get it okay.)

The title comes from the gospel song "Amazing Grace."

Summary: Eliot's brother, a paramedic, is injured on the job, perhaps fatally, and a long-buried family secret comes to light. _Leverage_ crossover with _Rescue 77_.

* * *

**Saved a Wretch Like Me**

Kathleen Ryan checks the pulse of the injured man in front of her, her hands moving as if in a dream. Long-lashed eyes flutter open, revealing pupils so dilated from shock and blood loss that only a thin pale blue ring remains around them.

"Ryan," Wick Lobo gasps, "Ryan, tell Grace that I love her, okay?" He chokes a little and his face contorts in pain, "Tell her I love her, if I don't make it." A bloody hand clutches at her wrist, and he looks at her, tears in his eyes. "Please. Tell her."

A rescue gone wrong ("God, I hate people who think that LSD gives them wings!") had led to Wick half slipping, half being pushed, and falling off of a roof onto a scaffolding, which broke his fall, then collapsed under his sudden weight. Wick had landed on a pile of metal pipes, one of which had gone _through_ his side, impaling him.

"I will," Ryan promises, swallowing past the lump in her throat, "I will."

Some of the tension goes out of the downed medic. "That bad, huh?" he smirks weakly, "You're not gonna say I'm not gonna die?"

"You're not gonna die, Wick," Michael Bell says with a forced calm from beside Ryan, sparing her. He turns to the new kid on the team. "Get the snap cutter."

"Oh man, this is gonna hurt," jokes Wick, "Somebody knock me out now."

"Sorry, Wick," Bell says, "We have to cut the pipe so we can transport you."

"I know," Wick gasps, looking a shade paler, if that's even possible, "Least you're not one of those idiots who'd," he stops for a shaky breath, "just yank the d-damn thing out. Bleed to death."

Bell puts more gauze around the wound site, making the injured man groan. "We're not gonna let you die, Wick."

"Maybe I should start talkin' about the las' days of disco," rasps Wick, "Or talk to God, huh, Ryan?" he says, reminding her of that other time they thought they were going to die. "Gonna kiss me?"

Ryan glares at him, hiding her worry. "Maybe you should just stop talking and let me put the oxygen mask on you."

The probie brings the pipe cutter to Bell. "The LSD guy threw up. I rolled him over on his side."

"Good," Bell grunts, swallowing back the sharp reprimand for being so late with the tool, and instead concentrates on keeping the blood _inside_ of his friend. "Come here and put pressure on the wound. Ready, Wick?"

Wick nods. He grips Ryan's hand tightly. "Don't forget to tell her, Kathleen," he says, voice muffled through the mask.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wick's brother really isn't what they'd expected. They'd never met him, though Wick had often talked about him and grumbled about how his daughter Gracie thinks that Uncle Eliot is Batman and Daddy is just plain ol' uncool Daddy. He sure hadn't mentioned that Eliot Lobo is his identical twin brother. That had come as a surprise when the wild-haired look-alike had rushed down the hospital corridor and demanded to know his brother's status.

That had been ten hours ago, and the Rescue 77 team's shift had ended two hours ago. Eliot had sent them back to work saying that his brother wouldn't appreciate other people dying while his team stood around and waited for news about him. This, while unerringly true to character, meant that they had to force themselves back to being the level-headed professionals they normally are.

When they'd returned to the hospital after their shift, they'd found Eliot sitting by the bedside of his pale counterpart with a wide-eyed nine-year-old girl in the chair next to him.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The ventilator breathing for Wick hisses mechanically and the heart monitor beeps steadily, providing some comfort that he's still alive. Still alive, but just barely.

Wick's daughter Grace is asleep now, curled up against her uncle, whose sinewy arm holds her close and keeps her from sliding out of her seat.

"What's going to happen to her, if he, you know," Ryan starts and clears her throat.

"What do you mean?" Eliot asks, his voice low.

"She's not really his," she explains, "She's adopted. And Jess is dead, so there's no one else."

"So what," Eliot begins heatedly, "Just because she's not my brother's biological kid, you think I'd abandon her?"

"_Well, you didn't come to your brother's wedding or to your sister-in-law's funeral,"_ Ryan thinks, _"or to any of your niece's birthday parties, for that matter. Not a real family kind of guy, are you?"_

"Some people would," Bell jumps in before she can say anything, "Not necessarily us or you, but some people would. We've seen it happen often enough that it's worth asking. And no offence, but we don't know you."

"I'd take her," Eliot says, "even if she wasn't- " He breaks off.

"Even if what?"

"Nothing."

There's an awkward silence broken only by the whirring of the machines keeping Wick alive.

Ryan takes the opportunity to examine the man sitting next to her and the little girl sleeping by his side. As she does so, she's again struck by how much Grace looks like Wick...and his brother Eliot. Other details, things that had stuck her as odd but that she'd forgotten over time, surface...

"She's yours."

"What?" There's surprise there, which is expected, but there's a bit of panic, too.

"Even if she wasn't _your_ daughter, you'd take care of her," Ryan says softly, "That's what you were going to say."

Bell stares at her as if she's crazy, and maybe she is, but she knows what her gut is telling her.

"It makes sense," Ryan goes on, "We've always said how uncanny it is how much she looks like him, even though she's adopted, and he's always laughed it off. But you have to admit, there's too much of a resemblance. And the way Wick and Jess adopted her was odd. He just turned up one day handing out cigars and showing off baby pictures and started talking about his new baby girl. He'd never once mentioned adoption or wanting to adopt before."

"He told me he couldn't have kids," Eliot says quietly, "Lasting effect from exposure to chemicals or some shit on the job about twelve, fifteen years ago. He didn't talk about it, not until Grace. I guess he was embarrassed, or thought that it wasn't anyone's business. He was with you in there, wasn't he?" he asks Ryan.

She nods. She and Wick had both gotten checked over after the chemical explosion and been told that there might be a chance that any children they have in the future would have birth defects, but she'd never taken the time to have children (although it was always a "maybe sometime" idea at the back of her mind), and Wick had never _said_ anything. But she should have known. He'd gotten married a couple of years before the adoption, and, she supposes, they must have tried for children and been unable to conceive.

Bell swallows and looks away, the guilt for _that_ incident rising again in his chest. _It was save them or contaminate the city. It was the right decision. It was._ The ghost of Wick's angry voice from the morning after that incident echoes in his mind,_ "I could be shooting blanks because of you!"_ They'd said that he was alright, and he and Wick had made up later, but...

"So she is yours?"

"Yeah. She's mine. I had a baby, they wanted one. I never could say no to him." Eliot turns to look at the prone, pale body of his brother. He swallows, mouth set in a grim line, and runs a gentle hand through Grace's soft blonde hair.

She flinches away and half falls, half stumbles out of her chair, face crumpled in pain and disbelief.

Eliot stares in shock. He hadn't meant for her to hear. He hadn't ever meant for her to know.

"Gracie."

"No," she forces out, "No. You- You don't get to call me that. You- I'm _adopted?_ And- And _you_ didn't _want me?_ You gave me away because he wanted me and you didn't?" Angry tears stream down her face, betrayed by her favorite "uncle."

Eliot stands and Grace staggers back, away from him. "Grace. That's not what I said. That's not what happened. I wanted you, okay?"

"But what?" she snarls, "He wanted me more, and _you never could say no to him,"_ she mocks, "So you just handed me over, and said, 'Here, raise my kid for me. I'll just pretend to be her uncle and show up whenever I feel like it'?"

"Grace," Eliot says helplessly, "Grace, just listen. I was in a bad place back then. I- " He pauses, not wanting to reveal exactly what he had been up to when Grace was born _(killerassassinMoreau),_ "I wanted to keep you - I was _going_ to keep you - but it was dangerous, and I needed you to be safe, so I brought you to the safest place I knew."

His eyes plead with his daughter to believe him. "It wasn't supposed to be forever."

He reaches for her again. She pulls back, hands outstretched as if to ward off a blow, and cries out, "Don't touch me! Leave me alone!"

"Grace."

Ryan and Bell look back and forth between the two of them, taken aback at the drama unfurling in front of them.

"I hate you!"

Ryan steps forward to intercept the sobbing figure as she runs out of the room, but a change in the sounds coming from the hospital bed stops the both of them.

_Beep-beep-beep-beep-beeeeeeeeeeep._

"Wick!"

There's a collective rush to Wick's side. The paramedics begin performing CPR, and Grace clasps her adoptive father's hand and sobs, "Daddy, don't leave me, don't leave me, please, I love you," over and over again, interspersed with "I'm sorry."

Eliot stands still, watching, then turns to allow the doctors and nurses into the room. He doesn't reach out for Grace when they pry her off of Wick, kicking and screaming, and instead lets Ryan comfort her. Grace doesn't want to see him, not right now.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bell and Ryan cast dirty looks at him over the blonde head and shaking shoulders for the rest of the hour it takes to stabilize Wick. When the doctor emerges, they are informed that although his chances of surviving will get better the longer he hangs on, Wick has fallen into a coma and they can't tell at this time whether he'll come around or...die without waking.

"I didn't say it back to him," Grace says tearfully from her seat beside Wick, who is lying still, too still.

"What?" Ryan asks, her deep voice gentle, "Say what?"

"He said, 'I love you,' when he dropped me off at school," Grace says, "I- I shut the car door in his face. I didn't even say bye. I was mad at him. And it was stupid."

"Oh, Grace," Ryan says, stroking the blond curls, "He knew. He knew, okay? He asked me to tell you that he loves you. You were the only thing on his mind, Grace. He knew."

"What if he dies?" Grace asks in a small voice. "What if he _dies?"_

The three adults exchange grim looks.

"Grace," Bell says softly, leaning down so that he's eye level with Grace. He lifts her chin up with a gentle hand. "Grace, he's going to be okay. He's going to be okay. You just have to believe in that."

Her lip wobbles. Seeing that, Bell tucks her hand into Wick's unmoving one and goes on, "You know, you can talk to him. Hearing's the last thing to go. He loves you so much. So much. If he responds to anything at all, it'll be you."

Delicate brows furrow. "Talk to him?"

"Just talk to him. Anything you want to say. He'll hear you."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Grace spends the next month talking to the man she had called Daddy all her life, all the while pointedly ignoring her "uncle."

She tells him about her day at school, her favorite TV show, her best memories, everything and anything...except the giant pink elephant in the room.

Friends and colleagues come to visit in hordes. Paramedics from various stations in the L.A. area, doctors and nurses, police officers and grim-faced firemen - one of the latter from Station 77 leaves behind a macadamia nut chocolate bar on the bedside table "for when you wake up, partner."

Grace holds his hand for hours each day, refusing to be budged from his side until she falls asleep with her head resting on her father's pillow. She is the one who notices the slight fever during the first week after the accident that leads to the infection in Wick's lacerated liver being discovered early enough to stem its spread.

She is the only one who doesn't give up, who refuses to say goodbye.

She is the one who is rewarded with the first twitch of the once-strong, capable fingers at the end of the long month.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Eliot hears a wheezing sound, a very distinctive wheeze. He shoots out of his seat and grabs his brother's hands before they can reach for the breathing tube. A moment later, the wheeze turns into a horrifying choke.

Grace lets out a cry of dismay and clutches her father's arm tightly. "Daddy?"

"Wick, Wick, man, don't fight it," Eliot says urgently, "Don't fight it. It's a breathing tube. Don't fight it." He presses the call button, even though the machines are beeping like no tomorrow. "It's okay, Wick. We're here. I'm here, Grace is here, everything is okay. Breathe."

He knows that as long as he keeps saying it, eventually, his brother will hear him, and hopefully, listen, "hopefully" being the key word here. Stubborn hard-headed bastard.

The awful gagging gets worse, and Wick struggles violently against Eliot's grip, eyes rolling wildly. A nurse runs in.

"He's fighting the tube," he tells her. "Stop fighting it, Wick, stop. It's helping you breathe."

"I have to ask you to step back, please, sir, both of you," the nurse says, holding Wick's wrists. Eliot stands nearby, just in case his brother breaks out of her grip. "Wick, if you can hear me, I need you to look at me."

Panicked blue eyes meet hers. The terror slowly leaches out of them after a few blinks.

"Okay, that's good," she says, "Relax. Let the ventilator do its job. It's breathing for you, okay?"

A flash of annoyance passes through the pale eyes. _Yes, I know how a ventilator works, lady! I'm a goddamn paramedic!_ He frowns and looks around. He can't see much of the room from his vantage point, but he knows that there's something...something...

His blood pressure rises and his heartbeat speeds up when he can't find what he's looking for, setting the alarms off again.

"Wick, relax," the nurse says soothingly.

His head moves from side to side, searching, searching...He mouths something.

"What is it? What do you need?"

Across the room, Grace is holding so tightly onto her uncle's arms, which have found their way around her without either of them realizing it, that there are red-and-white marks left on them when she lets go.

Eliot leans down and whispers in her ear, "Go to him. He's looking for you."

Scared, wet eyes meet his. He nods his encouragement and gives her a little push. "Go on."

She steps forward. "Dad? Daddy?"

The searching eyes find her, and dry lips form her name. She brushes his hair back, smiling tearfully. "Hi Daddy. Daddy, you woke up!" She kisses his cheek gently. "You woke up."

"_Grace."_

"Why can't he talk?" she demands of the nurse, worry making her voice shrill.

"The breathing tube is between his vocal cords, so he won't be able to speak until it comes out," the nurse explains. "It's normal."

"When will it come out?"

"It depends on how fast he gets better after this."

Wick's eyes droop, and he blinks blearily up at his daughter. His dry, chapped lips move around familiar words.

"I love you too, Daddy," Grace says. She bites her lip. "I'm sorry I didn't say it before."

He squeezes her hand and smiles. _"I know."_

The tired eyes flutter closed.

"Dad?"

"Let him rest, sweetheart," Eliot says, putting a hand against her back, "He'll be alright now."

Grace relaxes, then remembers that she's angry at him, so she sends him a scathing glare before flouncing down in her bedside seat again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ryan, Bell, and the new kid (Luis, but he's been "the new kid" for the four months he's been on the team) come by to visit whenever they can, between calls and after shifts, but they never seem to be able to catch Wick when he's awake, or lucid at least.

"_Rescue 77,"_ Dr. Hansen at City Base says over the radio after their latest rescue is seen safely to the emergency room, _"Don't know if you've heard, but Wick's off his ventilator now. He tried to pull the tube out on his own last night." _

The three of them look at each other, bewildered. "He what?!"

The radio crackles again, somehow sounding smug even through the static._ "It's a good thing that I just _happened_ to be passing by his room when he did it. It sounded like they were having some kind of family argument in there."_

They rush to Wick's room. Sure enough, the ventilator has been removed from the room, and the only tubes attached to him are the ones leading under the blanket and the ones in the back of his hand. There are shiny traces of gum residue left on his cheeks from the medical tape that had been used to keep the tube in place.

"Great," Luis says quietly, seeing that Wick's eyes are closed, "he's asleep _again."_

"Not 'sleep," Wick mumbles roughly, "Jus' restin' my eyes." He opens them. "Hey."

They crowd around him then, their grins nearly splitting their faces in half.

"Hey," Ryan says, "how are you feeling?"

Wick grins weakly. "Peachy. I'm a human donut."

"I'd say you looked more like a shish kabob," Luis says, but backs away at the glares from his superiors. "You're right. You looked more like a donut. I don't know what I was thinking."

Wick chuckles, then grimaces, his hand going gingerly to his abdomen. "Don't make me laugh, kid."

"Sorry." The probie fails to look the least bit apologetic. "It's good to see you back, man."

"Good to be back," Wick rasps, his voice still rough from weeks of disuse and the previous night's abuse. He holds up a loosely curled hand for a fist bump.

"So Hansen said you tried to pull the tube out on your own last night?" Ryan prompts, crossing her arms disapprovingly.

Wick tries to grin, but it comes out as a wince. "Yeah. I can breathe just fine."

"Why'd you do it?" Bell asks, "It's reckless, even for you. You could have damaged something. Permanently."

"Aw, stop fussin'. Got the talk from Hansen already." Wick wets dry lips and averts his eyes. "Hate being strapped down."

Bell and Ryan exchange looks, then glance simultaneously at the new kid, who takes the hint and sidles out of the room, muttering something about coffee.

Bell turns back to Wick. Like Ryan, he crosses his arms. "We heard there was a 'family argument' in here last night."

Wick doesn't respond.

"If Eliot's bothering you, you can put him on a list- " Ryan begins, but is broken off by Wick shaking his head.

"No," he rasps, "He's okay. It's...It's the both of them. Normally, they're best buds, inseparable, y'know? But now..." He sighs, out of breath.

"Wick," Ryan says slowly, "I don't know if you've been told this, but Grace knows about being adopted, and who her real father is. That's why they've been acting the way they are."

Wick looks at them in surprise, the both of them. "Eliot told me last night that she'd found out, but I didn't know you guys knew, too. Damn, he musta talked a lot while I was out. That's not like him."

"I guessed it," Ryan says. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"About Grace?" Wick asks, "Because she's my kid. She's mine. I raised her. Doesn't matter where she came from."

"The infertility, Wick," Bell says, guilt making his voice sharp, "Why didn't you tell us how badly you'd been affected by those chemicals?"

Wick looks at him for a long time. "It wasn't any of your business," he says slowly after a pause, "And it wasn't your fault, Bell. You were right back then; I woulda done the same thing in your shoes. Either that, or done the reckless thing and gone in after you and let the door close on me."

Bell presses his lips together and looks away, unable to meet the blue gaze. He stands. "I'm going to go fill out the paperwork for the last job," he says and leaves the room, head and shoulders bent.

Wick and Ryan watch him go, and then look at each other. Years of working in close contact with each other have given them the ability to know what the other is thinking without speaking.

"So you okay?" Wick says into the awkward silence.

Ryan gives an unladylike snort. "That's what I'm supposed to ask you."

"I mean," Wick says seriously, "Down in the babymaker." He looks pointedly in the direction of her pelvis.

Ryan's lips twist wryly. "Gee, say it more delicately, why don't you. Yeah," she sighs, "I'm fine. After I found out about your...problem, I got a couple of my eggs checked out. I'm fine. All I have to do now is find a guy and I'm all set to have as many babies as I want before menopause hits."

Relief shows in Wick's eyes. He smirks. "I know someone who could help you out," he starts, "You have the same interests, same working hours - and he's a decent guy. Hard to find those nowadays."

Ryan glares. "No. Not happening, Wick. Stop trying to set me up with Bell."

Wick grins but says nothing.

"Stop it," Ryan growls.

Wick keeps grinning, so Ryan swats his arm.

"Hey, no hitting the invalid," Wick rasps, "That's against the rules."

"Since when have you played by the rules?" Ryan retorts, then remembers...one of the other times when Wick didn't quite follow the rules.

So does Wick, going by the way his smile falters. "Wick? I- " She trails off.

Wick closes his eyes and concentrates on breathing.

"Wick?" Ryan says tentatively.

He opens his eyes and gestures to the pitcher of water on the bedside table. Ryan helps him drink from the paper cup provided by the hospital.

"It was just Jess, me, and the doctors who knew," Wick says quietly after a pause, his voice still rough, "And Eliot, later on. But he doesn't know the whole story. He doesn't know about the miscarriages," he says, looking straight up at the ceiling, "Three of 'em. We lost _three_ babies and we knew something was wrong. I knew, I _knew_ that it was me."

Wick swallows painfully and closes his eyes again. Ryan puts her hand over his. "We wanted kids, Kathleen. Coupla rugrats, maybe three or four. Jess loved kids. 'S why she was a kindergarten teacher."

He takes a few shallow breaths. Ryan knows that he doesn't like talking about his late wife; her sudden death in a car accident still hurts too much. After a minute, he goes on.

"A coupla weeks after we found out, Eliot came to us for help, wanted us to take care of Grace for a while, maybe a month, while he got things sorted out. He was goin' through a tough time. It seemed like a miracle." Wick forces the words out though his abused throat. His voice cracks and fades away into a hoarse whisper. "She was perfect. And then he came back. I couldn't face giving her back to him. Jess. Jess didn't wanna give her back. We fell in love with her the first time we laid eyes on her. And he wanted to take her away again." He looks at Ryan now. "We couldn't give her back."

"So you asked him to let you adopt her," Ryan finishes.

Wick nods. "We loved her. I love her." He whispers, "Love her more than anything."

"And she loves you, Wick. She might be angry at your brother, but never at you."

Wick doesn't reply for a long moment, only frowns. "He's a good man. Maybe he fell off the right path for a while, but he's got a heart of gold, Ryan. Goddamn heart of gold."

Ryan sighs. She can't really agree with her friend about his brother. As many times as they've seen each other, they haven't talked very much since that first day. Eliot Lobo hadn't made a very good impression on her. "So he's like you?" she says with a smile.

Wick rolls his eyes, the long conversation they'd had having exhausted him.

"So- " Ryan is cut off by a burst of static from the radio on her belt.

"_Rescue 77. Heart attack on intersection Doheny and Gregory...Elderly male..."_

"Duty calls," Wick whispers and raises his hand slightly in a small salute. He looks drained.

"Gotta go," Ryan says and pats his arm. "Don't push yourself too hard, okay?"

Wick winks at her.

"I mean it."

She's almost at the door when she hears the ragged voice again. "Don't tell." Ryan knows that he means the three babies who never had a chance to live. The three babies only they know about, apart from the doctors who had treated Wick's wife.

"Secret's safe with me."

She means it. She too had felt the anxiety those first few weeks after the incident. She knows now how close she had come to being like Wick, to not being able to have children of her own, and the thought fills her with relief for herself, but also sorrow for the silent heartbreak her close friend had gone through.

Wick nods his tired thanks and closes his eyes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Grace is doing her homework at his bedside the next time he wakes up. A quick glance around the hospital room shows him that his brother is doing his creepy, silent, glowering, crossed-arm watching thing again.

"How was school, baby?" he asks his daughter in a whisper.

She grins and gives him a peck on the cheek. "It was good," she says, and proceeds to tell him all about it, in detail.

When Wick tires again, she picks her pencil up and continues working on her schoolwork. He watches her with his eyes half-closed, drifting in and out of sleep. Pretty soon, she finishes the assigned worksheets and puts them away neatly in a folder, then pulls out a book to read.

Eliot had been watching Grace, too, and had been waiting for her to complete her work.

"They're selling Girl Scout cookies downstairs. Want some?"

Wick watches the girl ignore Eliot's question with her mouth set in a very familiar stubborn line. He's not used to seeing his brother this _unsure_ around Grace, hell, around anybody for that matter. Eliot is a confident guy. He doesn't do hesitation and uncertainty. Ever.

"Right," Eliot mutters, and moves as if to sit back down, but can't decide if he really wants to. He runs a hand through his hair and turns towards the door. "I guess I'll...go get some. Don't go anywhere."

Wick has had enough. Really, truly enough. He stops pretending to be asleep. "Grace." He uses his "big, big trouble" voice, or tries to, anyway. He gets the tone right, but he still needs to work on his volume.

Grace looks up from her book, and Eliot halts on his way to the door.

"Grace," Wick says (well, whispers, actually), "When someone offers to do something for you, it's polite to say thank you."

Grace sits sullenly, her lips pressed tightly together.

"I know you're upset with Uncle Eliot," he goes on, "but that doesn't mean you get to be rude to him. I raised you better than that."

"He's not my uncle," Grace retorts.

Wick looks from the girl to his brother. He looks back at Grace. "You disowning me now, too, Gracie? Huh? Come here," he says and tugs on her arm so she can climb up onto the bed with him. She leans against him gingerly and burrows her face in his shoulder.

"Don't judge him without knowing the whole story, okay? He loves you." He turns her face so that she's looking directly up into his. "Have you ever doubted that? Ever? Before last month, did you ever doubt that he loves you, that he'd give his life for you? Huh?"

Grace blinks unbidden tears out of her eyes. "No," she says in a small voice.

"Then what makes you doubt it now?" he asks gently.

"He gave me away," she says, her face crumbling. "You wanted me and he didn't."

Eliot opens his mouth to deny the claim, but Wick shakes his head at him over Grace's. _Let_ _me handle it._ "Gracie, sweetheart, did you ever ask about his side of the story? He wanted you. He loves you, baby. He only ever wanted the best for you. He was thinking of you. You don't remember how he looked when he made his decision, or when he asked if he could have a few minutes alone with you to say goodbye. I do. Ask him why he named you Grace."

Grace pulls away, puzzled at this new revelation.

"You didn't know he named you?" Wick asks, even though he is certain that she hadn't, "Well he did. Ask him why. You might change your mind."

Grace wrinkles her nose. "I don't think so," she says and snuggles against his chest.

Wick makes a face at Eliot_ - okay, you win -_ and peels her off of him. "You want cookies? I bet you can get him to buy you cookies. Thin Mints, Gracie," he says, tempting her with her favorite.

She huffs at him and slides off the bed. "Fine." She sighs dramatically.

"Hey," he says, reaching for her hand, "gonna run off without giving me a kiss?"

Grace leans over and kisses him on the side of his nose. Wick squeezes her hand. "No matter what, you're my little girl, okay? I ain't ready to let him steal you back." He winks at Eliot, who rolls his eyes and shakes his head in exasperation.

A coughing fit overcomes him then. They happen when he talks too much at once. It's painful, too, since he still has that goddamn hole in his side that's only half-healed. He feels a strong hand lift his head and shoulders up and the rim of the paper cup touches his lips. He opens up to let a small amount of water slide in. When he blinks the tears out of his eyes, he sees Eliot standing beside him, putting the cup back on the bedside table. Their eyes meet, and it's like it used to be, when they could hold entire conversations without words.

The gist of it: _Thank you._

"Can we get cookies now?" Grace asks from the foot of the bed. Wick levels a _look_ at her, and she adds, "Please?"

"Yeah, sure," Eliot says, and his hand twitches, as if he wants to hold out his hand for her to take like he normally does, "Let's go."

Grace purses her lips, looks at Wick, then walks up close to Eliot. She eyes him critically, then grabs onto his hand. She gives it an experimental pull, as if thinking of hanging off of her uncle's arm like she used to as a toddler. "I want Thin Mints, Uncle Elly."

The tenseness in Eliot's face dissolves into a smile. "You got it, princess."

"An' Do-Si-Dos for Daddy."

"He's not supposed to have solid food yet."

"_Bummer."_

"Yeah."

"For later?"

"You just wanna eat them _for_ him, don't you?"

"Mmmm, maybe?"

"Alright. Let's go get Thin Mints and Do-Si-Dos."

Wick leans back against his pillows and sighs. A smile spreads on his face as he listens to Eliot and Grace's chatter fade away down the hospital corridor. He's tired. Family drama is so goddamn exhausting.

As he closes his eyes, an image of a week-old Grace rises in his mind. Only a week old and so tiny, but she had done something to him, to Jess and to Eliot, to all of them. They'd all wanted her, but Eliot had given her up, for her sake.

He had confessed to Wick not long after Jess died (when Eliot had come, he'd thought, he'd _feared,_ that he'd come to take Gracie back, because now that Jess was gone, he and Eliot were in the same boat - no mother for Gracie) that his life was no life for a baby, but he had been prepared to take care of Grace the best he could. He'd known deep in his heart though, that his best wouldn't be enough.

Wick had looked down at the little blonde head resting against his chest and thought, God, how was he gonna do this without Jess? Maybe her real father was the best person to raise her, not him. Not him alone. Then the long-lashed eyes had opened and blue eyes looked into his so trustingly that he knew he could do it. He had to. He needed to.

Wick had looked back up at his brother and knew that he knew what he was thinking, that Eliot had been right when he'd said that the little girl had been his saving grace, and that that was why he had named her that.

She was Wick's, too. There was no way he could have gotten through Jess' death without Grace trusting him and needing him and loving him - his sweet, amazing, saving grace.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

AN: Um, cheesy? I don't care. I wanted to write something like this. I left a few scenes out, like Grace and Eliot's convo, because this ran to 16 pages (and that one turned out to be an additional 12 pages) so I didn't want to make it too long. I'll post it tomorrow. That one has the backstory of Eliot leaving Grace at Wick's in it (waaaaay more Eliot because it's his POV). Again, I apologize for the lack of _Leverage_ in this, but I really had nowhere else to put it.


	11. G: Saving Grace

AN: Dude. 97 reviews? You guys rock. Thank you so much! I _will_ get around to replying to them. I will. First priority, though, is to get my one fic a day written, so I don't get behind. You guys wouldn't want that to happen, right? But I just want you all to know that I really, truly appreciate your comments and support. Thank you!

This is a direct sequel to "Saved a Wretch Like Me." In fact, it's more like the next chapter for it than anything. If you haven't read it, you definitely won't get this. Like the other story, this is posted here because there's no _Rescue 77_ category on the site. By the way, I'm really happy that the last chapter didn't receive any "I don't get it, don't like it" comments. *whew* It was actually the other way around, which is so great. Thanks again! (Reply to anon **drjones**: Dude, you've seen that show?! You're probably one of like, the less than 1000 people out there who have, lol. Thanks! Now everybody who hasn't seen it go take a look at the Always Christian Kane fansite.)

Summary: Nine years ago, Eliot gave his daughter up for adoption. Sequel to "Saved a Wretch Like Me." _Leverage/Rescue 77_

* * *

**Saving Grace**

_Nine years ago..._

He's tired. He hasn't had the chance to sleep much for four days; he's had to keep moving, and every time he thought he was safe and hidden enough to catch a half-hour of shut-eye, a heart-breaking wail from the baby carrier would wake him.

He's worn out.

He hitches the diaper bag into a more comfortable position and adjusts his grip on the carrier. The gentle movement makes the baby gurgle at him. He smiles down at her.

Man, this is going to be so hard. He never knew that he could love someone so much.

"_It's for you, baby, I'm doin' it for you,"_ he whispers, _"'Cause you're worth it."_

Little Baby Grace coos and waves tiny fists. He pulls the blanket up so she won't catch cold in the cool night air.

He walks up the path leading to the house, his brother's house.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Now..._

He buys her all the cookies she wants. Three packs of Thin Mints, two of Do-Si-Dos ("for Daddy," she says), and after careful deliberation, one box of Trefoil shortbread cookies. Eliot notes to himself that while Gracie hates Trefoils, they're his favorite. He counts that as a sign that she's not mad at him anymore. _That _mad.

They wander outside to the courtyard, where there's a small fountain and a few benches scattered about. Eliot lets Grace pick out which bench they'll sit at to eat their cookies.

She picks one right up against the fountain, so close that they can feel a light spray. It's a nice day out, and the mist feels good against their sun-warmed skin. Eliot puts the cookie boxes on the bench, and Grace picks out her package of Thin Mints. Then she pulls the Trefoils out of the stack and offers them to him.

"Guess this means I'm outta the doghouse now, huh?" he remarks, taking the box.

Grace shrugs. "Maybe. Tell me."

Eliot knows exactly what she means by that, but he doesn't want to tell her. He doesn't want to tell her the story of how he gave her up. He might tell it wrong, and it might alienate her forever, make her hate him for ever.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Nine years ago..._

He leaves the house, his brother's house, with a sinking, twisting feeling in his gut.

He'll come back. He'll come back for her, if he doesn't get killed first, if he doesn't get caught, if he doesn't get shot or blown up or any of the myriad ways Moreau can order his execution.

Wick's wife, Jess. He'd never met her before tonight, but she seemed like a nice woman. A kindergarten teacher, Eliot knows from looking her up when Wick had called him to tell him that he was getting married, and that Eliot had better be there as his best man, or else. (He didn't go. He didn't want his enemies - or the men employed under him - catching on that Eliot Spencer has a vulnerable spot after all.)

She'd opened the door and known exactly who he was. Of course - he and Wick are identical twins, after all. She'd seen the baby carrier, the weariness on his face, and she'd let him in. She'd given him coffee and food, told him that Wick had a night shift today, so he wasn't home. And then she'd asked if she could hold the baby.

He'd seen the looks she'd given the covered baby carrier, the furtive, longing glances. Eliot knows that she and Wick don't have children yet, even though they've been married for a while now.

He'd nodded and stood to pick the sleeping baby up out of her nest of soft blankets. He'd cradled her, tucked the little pink blanket around her and pulled it away from her face so that it wouldn't tickle her and make her sneeze. Then he'd handed her over to his brother's wife, slowly, carefully.

Jess had taken her and pulled her close, held her the right way (Eliot hadn't known what the hell to do with a baby, a newborn baby, when they'd first put her in his arms, but he'd learned. He'd learned quickly because he'd had to), and made the sort of sounds women make at babies. She'd smiled and asked him her name.

"Grace," he'd said, the first time he'd told anyone outside the hospital where she was born, "Her name's Grace."

"Oh," she'd said, "Oh, that's a beautiful name for a beautiful baby."

Grace had woken up then, and Eliot had moved in closer to take her from Jess, just in case Grace saw a stranger and started crying. But the crying never began. Grace had gazed up at her aunt and looked and looked and looked.

Later, he would pinpoint that as the moment Jessica Lobo fell completely in love with his daughter.

"Hi baby," she'd said softly, "Hi Grace. I'm your Aunt Jess. Hi."

He'd cleared his throat then. He'd said, "I need to ask you a favor. I, uh, I need you to watch her for a while. I don't know how long, but maybe a couple of weeks, a month maybe. I need to get things ready for her. I didn't know I was gonna have her until they called me and told me her mother died in labor and she'd said that I was the baby's father." It had all come out in a rush, once he'd gotten started. "I need to take care of things before I can take care of her. This is the safest place I could think of. Please."

"Of course," Jess had said, a happy smile spreading on her face, "Of course we'll take her." She rocks the baby and makes more sounds at her.

"Do you need to ask Wick?"

"No, he won't mind. We've been trying for a baby," she'd confided, but it had an odd inflection in it, something that sounded like...sorrow. He hadn't asked. Something told him that it wasn't meant for his ears.

So he'd taken his leave, said goodbye to his week-old daughter and gone to make her a home. A ranch, maybe. He'd often thought that he'd want a ranch, a small one, or a farm if he lived long enough to retire.

He stands outside his brother's house and feels a sense of foreboding. Like something, something is shifting in the gears of life (if he wants to be dramatic and philosophical about it).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Now..._

He sighs. He wonders exactly how much to tell her. Most of it isn't meant for nine-year-old ears. Hell, some of it isn't meant for grown men to hear, not living men, at least.

"You know what I do?" he asks, "Work, I mean."

"Yeah," Grace replies through a mouthful of chocolate-covered cookie. "You're 'in security.' Whatever that means. You help people."

"Well," he says, feeling that plummeting of shame in his chest again, "Before you were born, I was in the business of hurting people. I did bad things for bad people."

Grace brushes the crumbs from her mouth and off of her clothes but says nothing.

"And then you came along and I thought that now would be a good time to get out, to quit. I had to take care of some stuff and I couldn't do it and keep you safe at the same time, so I went to the safest place I knew."

"To Daddy."

"Yeah," he replies, "to your dad. They took care of you for a month until I came back. I had a house all ready for you, y'know? A farm with horses and chickens and a funny-lookin' rooster. Your room was the one with the best view. I painted it pink."

"I don't like pink," Grace says.

"I know. But I didn't know that back then."

"So what happened?"

"I went back," he says, getting to the hard part. "And then they asked me if they could keep you."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Nine years ago..._

"No," he says, backing away with the baby in his arms. "No."

His brother's wife is crying in Wick's arms; she doesn't want to let the baby go.

"Please, El," Wick says, "We love her."

"No," Eliot shakes his head, "She's my _daughter_, Wick."

Jess looks up at her husband. "Tell him," she whispers, "Wick, please."

Wick meets his wife's wet eyes with his own moist ones. He starts to shake his head. "Jess."

Eliot takes the opportunity to turn around and _leave,_ but his brother's voice stops him.

"Eliot. I can't have kids."

He turns around. "What?"

"We tried," Wick says, letting Jess go and walking towards him, "There's something wrong with me. I was in a chemical explosion a few years back, and they just told us a little while ago that- " he pauses, "that I can't have kids. We can't have kids. Please."

Eliot looks down at his daughter, _his_ daughter, and sees how much she's grown in the month since he last saw her, how clean and healthy she is, how beautiful. "She's my daughter."

"No," Jess cries out, "Please, don't take her away." Wick catches her as she falls forward, sobbing, "We love her. We love her so much, please."

"Jess," Wick says quietly, "We can adopt. We'll adopt another baby, someone else's baby."

Jess shakes her head. "I love Grace. I love her, Wick. Don't tell me you don't want her as much as I do," she says fiercely.

"She's Eliot's," Wick says, but Eliot can see how right Jess is about how much Wick wants Grace, too. He wants her, he needs her, loves her.

Woken by the commotion, the baby begins crying. Eliot rocks her. "Shhhhh, Grace, I'm here. I'm here. It's okay."

It's then that he realizes that his daughter doesn't know him, doesn't recognize him, even though he looks exactly like the man who has been taking care of her for the last month.

Grace cries even harder, and Eliot doesn't...doesn't know what to do. He looks up at his brother, standing there with his wife in his arms and a broken, longing expression on his face, and he looks back at his baby girl.

_His _baby girl, who's crying her little heart out because she's being held by a stranger.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Now..._

"And then you gave me to them," Grace finishes as his story winds down.

"My life is no life for a baby," he says, trying to explain that _it didn't happen like that,_ "It's no life for a kid."

"Dad said you wanted to say goodbye to me?" she asks, nibbling on another cookie (she won't be able to eat dinner with all those cookies in her stomach, but Eliot doesn't have the heart to stop her).

"Yeah, I did."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Nine years ago..._

He looks down at the wailing baby in his arms, and...and thinks, _"I got no business being a dad. They'll love her. They'll take care of her. They'll keep her safe, safe from me, safe from Moreau and everyone else who wants to kill me. She'll be safe. She'll be happy. She needs a mother, a father who knows what to do. Not me. She doesn't need me."_

He looks at his brother and his wife, whose faces are falling, disappointed, heartbroken - they think he'll leave, take the baby with him.

"Just let me say goodbye," he croaks, holding Grace closer to his chest, "Give me a few minutes alone with her to say goodbye. And then she's yours."

Wick and Jess remain frozen for a moment, as if unbelieving this turn of events, their good fortune. Then, looking at each other as if to confirm what they've just heard, they stammer out their thanks, with tears running down their faces.

They stumble out of the room together then, his arm around her, and leave him alone with Grace. His daughter, soon to be his niece.

A little voice in the back of his mind tells him that it's not too late, that he can walk out of the house with her now and his brother will never be able to find them. Then he remembers Wick's face, Jess's face, and thinks, no, he can't.

The baby has stopped wailing by now, tired out from crying so hard and for so long. She makes little snuffling sounds, short, quiet whimpers.

He rocks her, and sings.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Now..._

"What did you sing?" Grace asks, and offers him a Thin Mint.

He takes it, and starts singing, softly, the song he'd sung to her as a baby.

_I guess I oughta tell you what's been going on  
Well I've been chasing dreams for everyone but me.  
When your heart is filled with misery  
It's hard to find the energy  
To remember just how much she means to me._

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Nine years ago..._

"_'Cause I've been hell on wheels for days now,"_ he sings, and she quiets, gazing up at him with serious blue eyes, his eyes, _"There ain't a shade of red I can't paint."_ He thinks, maybe she recognizes him now, remembers his voice (Wick can't sing a note, having been born _completely _tone-deaf).

_When the lights go down, she always helps me see.  
In the darkness a day will come  
Another light for you to lean upon  
But until then maybe your heart  
Can rest in mine._

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Now..._

"I know this song," Grace says. "I remember this one."

"Yeah," Eliot says softly, "I used to sing you to sleep with it, back after your mom died and your dad was a wreck."

"I miss her."

"Yeah," he replies, "I know." He wishes he'd come back to visit his brother and his family before she'd died, but he hadn't. He'd never known Jess in any other way than the woman who'd wanted his child. And now, she's dead, and there's nothing he can do about that.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Nine years ago..._

He goes into the kitchen, where Wick and Jess are talking softly, their heads almost touching. They've probably been kissing, they're so close together. Even though their eyes are red and there are traces of tears on their cheeks, they look happy.

They look up when he enters, looking half-afraid that he'll go back on his word.

He walks up to his brother and holds the baby out to him. "She's yours," he says tersely, "I'll take care of the paperwork."

"Eliot," Wick begins, but Eliot interrupts.

"Just take her," he says, his face crumbling. "Take her, Wick, please. Just don't ever tell her where she came from. Okay? That's all I ask. Love her, protect her, raise her right, and don't tell her where she came from."

Wick nods and takes the sleeping bundle out of his arms. "Yeah. Okay."

As soon as the warm weight leaves him, Eliot pivots and half-runs, half-falls out of the room, out of his brother's house, feeling like he's leaving his heart behind.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Now..._

"Why?" Grace asks. "Why didn't you want me to know where I came from?"

"Because I knew _this_ would happen," he replies, gesturing wide to mean this whole big mess.

Grace sighs. "Do you ever wish you hadn't given me up?"

"No," he replies simply, "You wouldn't have turned out so good if I'd raised you."

She frowns. "You don't know that."

He turns the question around on her. "Do you wish I'd raised you instead of your dad?"

She thinks about that for a minute, turning it over in her mind. "No, I guess not. I like you as an uncle."

"And I like being your uncle." He smiles and bumps her shoulder. She scoots over and leans on him, so he puts his arm around her.

"But if Dad died, you'd take me, right?" She still looks unsure, and it kills him to see her so uncertain of her future. Kids shouldn't have to worry about stuff like that.

"Of course. You're still my family. But don't think about your dad dying. It's not gonna happen. He'll be okay."

"Yeah. He better be," she says ominously.

"Yeah? Or what?"

"I'll sic Nurse Eliot on him." She grins.

"Oh," Eliot chuckles, "is that right?"

She giggles. "Uh-huh."

"I guess he better get his ass all healed up soon or you'll make me give him sponge baths or some shit." He makes a comically disgusted face.

"Ew!" she punches him in the arm.

"Hey," he says, "Where'd you learn to hit like that?" He takes her hand and curls it into a proper fist. "Thumb goes outside, otherwise you'll end up breaking it instead of the other guy's nose."

"Will Daddy get mad at you for showing me this?" she asks, as she punches the air experimentally.

Eliot thinks for a moment. "Teaching you how to hit people, on top of filling you up with cookies? Yeah, probably."

Grace snorts. "You're gonna be in trouble," she sing-songs.

"Aw, shut up, kid."

"You're not supposed to say that to me."

"Oh, really?" He looks down at the nine-year-old tucked under his arm. "I bought you cookies. Doesn't that get me brownie points or something?"

She purses her lips up at him. "Mmm, maybe. Depends."

"On what?"

"Are you gonna take me to see the farm you bought me?"

He lets his head fall back. "You wanna see the farm?"

"Yes."

"It's kinda far," he hedges, "It's in Missouri."

"So?"

"So, we're in L.A.," he says, "And besides, you gotta ask first."

"Ask Dad? He'll probably say I can go." She seems sure of it, but Eliot's not too sure. After this whole fiasco, Wick's going to want to keep Grace close.

"I wanna see my room, even though it's pink, and I wanna see the funny-lookin' rooster, and the chickens and the horses, and I wanna see the view," she says.

"The animals aren't there anymore, but everything else is the way it was," he says. Nine years ago, he'd sold off the livestock, given away the baby things he'd bought, and chained and locked the fence surrounding the farm.

But the farm and the house, he'd kept them. He doesn't know why, but he'd kept them, as the only reminder he has that he had once had hopes of being a father, a good father.

"Well, I wanna see," Grace says.

He grunts noncommittally, and stands.

"Come on," he says, "We better get back to your dad's room. He mighta pulled something else out, like his IV or his catheter or something 'cause he got antsy waitin' to see if we've killed each other," he half-jokes, referring to the previous night, when he and Wick had gotten into a sort of one-sided argument that had ended in Wick pulling out his own breathing tube in a fit of frustration.

She wrinkles her nose at him. "You shouldn't fight with him when he's hurt."

"He's the one who picked the fight," he retorts. "I was only trying to get him to go back to sleep."

"Yeah," Grace says sarcastically, "it totally worked out like that."

They walk in companionable silence for a few minutes.

"Hey, Uncle Elly?" Grace asks tentatively.

"Yeah?"

"Why'd you name me Grace?"

Wick had spilled the beans on that one, too, damn him.

"Promise you won't laugh?"

"Promise."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Nine years ago..._

He holds his daughter in his arms for the first time, and gets lost in her big blue eyes, his eyes.

"_Hi baby," _he whispers,_ "Hi. I'm your daddy."_

He reaches out to touch the soft cheek, but pauses. There's blood on his hands. Not literal blood, but figuratively, his hands are dripping with it. His hands aren't clean enough to be touching a new-born baby.

He can't. He can't.

He gives the baby back to the nurse and mumbles something about making a phone call. He thinks it comes out in Russian, but it might have been Italian or English for all he knows.

He makes it outside into the cold night air and breathes, pants, gasps, pulls his hair. He's a father. He's a father.

He'd gotten the call four hours ago, relaying a simple message: one of his former flames had died in a Moscow hospital, giving birth to a daughter, his daughter.

His daughter. He hadn't been sure because hey, it had been a one-night thing and she'd never called to tell him, but he'd taken one look into those big, innocent eyes and he'd known. He'd known that this little girl is his flesh and blood.

He stops pacing, so suddenly that an elderly woman almost bumps into him. He apologizes distractedly.

Yeah, he can do this. He can do this. He made this kid. He can take care of her. He can. And he'll do it right. He'll...he'll retire. He'll do it.

He pulls out his phone. "I quit," he says when Moreau answers.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Now..._

"Because," he replies, to answer Grace's question, "You were my saving grace. I'd be dead by now if it weren't for you. Because of you, I started to care again about being a good person. I don't feel like a bad guy anymore. That's all because of you."

Grace examines him critically. "Uncle Elly?" she asks suddenly, "Do you love me?"

"Of course I do," he replies, taken aback, "You know I do."

"Okay," she says, nodding, satisfied with his answer, "I love you, too. I don't hate you anymore."

"Oh really?" he says, laughing a little at the nine-year-old bluntness, "That's good to hear." Then he snags her around the shoulders, leans down to whisper in her ear, _"I love you more than anything, Gracie. Always have, always will."_

She rewards him with a peck on the cheek.

"Hey, Uncle Elly?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"What's for dinner?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Nine years ago..._

He holds his daughter for the second time, looks deep into her eyes, and smiles.

"_Welcome to the world, Grace. I love you."_

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

AN: And that is the end of this verse, at least for this collection, unless you want more. I can definitely think of more to write.

The song lyrics are from Christian Kane's "In the Darkness."


	12. Velveteen

Summary: Bunny thinks about Parker becoming Real.

AN: Yes, this is a Bunny POV. However, it is not crack. Seriously. This whole thing is an allusion to _The Velveteen Rabbit. _

*whimpers* I'm behind on review replies_ again. _So, so sorry. I've been writing like crazy. *is all fizzled out* But keep them coming! I thrive on them. Whenever I feel myself going, "Stuck, _stuck!"_ I take a look at my reviews page and _simper._ Then I get the energy to write again.

* * *

**Velveteen**

Parker is Bunny's family. Bunny is Parker's family. Bunny was, for a very long time, Parker's only family. Things are different now.

Bunny remembers when he was new. He had been a white stuffed rabbit, with fluffy fur and big, lovable, floppy ears. Bunny had been made to be loved.

And he was.

He remembers sitting at the store with all the other bunnies, hoping to be bought by someone who would give him to a child who would love him. He recalls a story heard whispered among the other bunnies about a little stuffed rabbit just like them who became Real because he was so loved. He remembers wanting to be loved so much that he could become Real someday.

Bunny remembers being bought. He remembers the anticipation, the waiting. Would he be given to a little boy or a little girl? He remembers the moment he was handed to a girl with sad blue eyes and blond hair. He remembers being clutched at, like he was the only lifeline she had. He remembers that very clearly.

Bunny remembers being carried everywhere, from foster home to foster home. He remembers being stolen from the little girl, not once, not twice, but many times. He remembers the tears that were dropped onto his fur, by now gray from being handled so much, from being loved so much, and he remembers all the sobs that the polyester filling inside of him had muffled. He remembers the life in the little girl's eyes being leached away, bit by bit.

Bunny remembers the first time the little girl, Parker, stole him back. The house went _boom._ Bunny liked that. It put a sparkle back in Parker's dull eyes.

Parker learned how to steal. So did Bunny. Bunny went everywhere with her. Bunny was with her when she learned how to drive - _"Get outta the way, you old bat!"_ - and when she learned how to pick pockets.

Bunny was with her when the man named Archie caught her trying to steal his wallet, and against all odds, decided to teach her the tricks of his trade.

Bunny remembers thinking that he didn't trust him. He knew that Parker didn't trust him, because other people shouldn't be trusted. But the man had offered ice cream and candy, so Bunny guessed that he was alright. And he'd kept giving them treats and teaching them how to steal, so Bunny guessed that that was alright, too.

Bunny knew, and Parker knew too, that Archie had a family. Parker pretended that it didn't bother her that Archie had a family, a real family, but Bunny knew that it did. It bothered her a lot that she wasn't normal enough to be Archie's real family. Bunny knew that Parker wanted to be Real. Bunny wasn't Real enough to be her real family.

It wasn't until Archie was long gone and Parker and Bunny had been working on their own for a very long time that Parker finally started to become Real.

Bunny remembers the day Parker met the Leverage team. That was the job where the client offered them fifty thousand dollars to steal something. That's a lot of money and Parker and Bunny love money. So they took the job, even though it meant that they had to work with other people. But Parker told Bunny that she didn't mind that much. The hacker guy was funny and the guy who hit people was growly and Nate was drunk. They worked well together.

Bunny remembers Nate Ford. Parker was mad because she almost got caught by the IYS guy. He was that good. And so when she and Bunny heard that he was playing on their side now, they'd thought that they could work with him because he was smart and knew what he was doing. A successful job meant getting paid. Money.

Except that never happened. Bunny remembers being angry that the Dubenich guy didn't pay Parker for her work. Parker took The Gun. But she didn't shoot anyone. She got blown up instead. When she told Bunny about it later, Bunny was angry and wanted to blow Dubenich up. Parker said that Nate had a better plan and that she trusted him. Bunny wasn't so sure about trusting him, but Parker said that he was an honest man, so she could trust him, a little bit. Besides, the paranoid hitter guy trusted him, too. "Of course," he'd said. (But Bunny had a plan: If this thing with Ford didn't work out, they could always blow Dubenich up.)

The con they ran on Dubenich got them a lot of money. A _lot _of money. Bunny and Parker were very happy. They slept in a bed of hundred dollar bills and woke up in the morning with paper stuck all over their bodies. That was nice.

So when the funny little hacker called them back and said Nate wanted them to work on another job, well, neither Bunny nor Parker were exactly against the idea. And then the job had grown into another job and another...because it felt good to help people.

Parker feeling. That was the start of her becoming Real. Parker wanted to be Real, but she didn't know how, and there had been no one before to help her. But now, she has people. She has a family.

Bunny realizes this before Parker does. But he doesn't tell her because he doesn't want to stop hearing her stories about her adventures with her new family. (He remembers the first time he actually met her family. They had been surprised that this was where Parker lived. All except for the growly man, Eliot. It had been exactly what he'd been expecting.) He doesn't want to stop hearing about how Parker is becoming Real. He doesn't want Parker to be scared of messing up being Real.

Eventually, Parker understands the change. She begins to understand about how to care about people, how to get into peoples' hearts and let them in too. The other people in Parker's family weren't completely Real themselves to begin with. That's why, Bunny thinks, that's why it all works. Because they're all helping each other become Real.

Bunny's job is to help Parker when she needs him. All her life, she had needed him, his love, and she had needed something to love. Now, Parker has her family, and they love her. She's Real now.

Parker doesn't _need_ Bunny anymore. He has done his job. And now, he thinks, he hopes, maybe he can become Real, just like in the story. He hopes that maybe she loved him enough to make him Real.

So now, Bunny sits on Parker's bed and wishes to become Real. He knows that it can happen. It happened to Parker.


	13. K: One Reason

Summary: Nate and Sophie meet Eliot's daughter. Sequel to "Kimi."

AN: (**Jess:** Here's your Kimiko sequel. It was actually next in line!) I'm calling this the Kimi-verse, okay? Makes sense, right? Also, since I got so many "Why didn't you warn us?!" wails last time...Warning: Tearjerker sandwiched between cuteness.

* * *

**One Reason**

Nate calls the team back together. They're going to do what they've been doing for the last few years: the Robin Hood gig - take from the rich and give to the poor.

Except. Except Eliot isn't coming back.

He won't say why, only says that he has a prior commitment. Nate asks when the commitment will end. Eliot simply replies, "I'm retired. Look, I know a guy. He can replace me on the team. I trust him."

That's not like him, to put the safety of the team in someone else's hands. That's how Nate knows that something is wrong. Perhaps the hitter has gotten injured worse than usual, maybe even permanently. Or he's gotten tangled up in something more dangerous than Moreau. Whatever it is, he doesn't want the team getting involved. That means that it's something that they need to help him with.

Hardison knows something about this, about what's up with Eliot. So does Parker. But their lips are sealed shut and nothing he or Sophie can do will budge them.

So he plans a team field trip to Japan, where Eliot is living. (He was able to pry that much out of Hardison.)

They file out of the rented car and up the narrow country lane leading up to the cozy little house with a small vegetable garden.

Nate knocks on the door. Sophie smoothes down her hair, and Parker and Hardison look...antsy. Well, actually, Hardison looks antsy, and Parker looks excited. That doesn't say much. Parker always looks excited when Eliot's about to hit somebody.

The door opens, revealing an unsurprised Eliot.

"You look healthy," Nate remarks. The hitter does look well and fit. There is a hint of weariness in the lines on his face, but otherwise, he looks healthy.

Eliot raises a brow and crosses his arms. "I am."

"If you're not injured, why do you need a replacement?" Nate asks. "Hardison says that you're not working."

The hacker makes a sound of protest that sounds vaguely like, _"Oh no he di'n't."_

Eliot huffs and lets his head fall back in half-exasperation. "You didn't even call the guy."

"Just give me a good reason," Nate says. "Then I'll call him."

"I got the best reason in the world for _retiring,_ Nate," Eliot begins.

Just then, Nate catches a flicker of motion behind the hitter. A dark, curly head and big, brown eyes peep out around a corner at the unexpected houseguests.

"Kimi!" Parker exclaims happily, and waves, crouching low to see her better around Eliot. "Hi Kimi!"

The little girl runs out, sock-clad feet pattering almost silently on the wooden floorboards. She waves both hands, _so_ excited to see her friends again, and _so_ excited that so many people have come to see her.

"Parker! Alec Wunnerlan!" The wide grin almost splits her face in two. "Papa! _Mite! Mite!_ Alec Wunnerlan!" She bounces on her toes in a little dance until Eliot picks her up.

"Hey-hey, little bit!" Hardison says, grinning.

Nate stares.

"Papa, _mite!"_

"Yeah, I see 'em, Kimi. You remember 'em, huh?" Eliot says softly, smoothing her unruly curls back, "These are my other friends, Nate and Sophie."

"Nato. Sofeee," the little girl chirrups obediently, blinking curiously at them.

"Ah," says her father (because what else could Eliot be to her) with an affectionate chuckle, "close enough. Guys, this is my daughter Kimiko. She's my reason, Nate. That good enough for you?"

Nate stares again.

Sophie picks up the slack. "She's a darling, Eliot," she coos, "Hello Kimiko."

"Hi-ee," Kimi says shyly, half into her father's hair and neck. Her little hand curls open and closed in a small wave.

"Oh, she's precious!" Sophie exclaims.

Kimi tilts her head and whispers in her papa's ear.

Eliot smiles. "That means that she thinks you're a cutie, hun. It's just another word for that. You're precious, like a treasure."

Kimi perks up. _"Pika-pika?"_ she queries. "Shiny?"

"No, darlin'," Eliot laughs, "Precious, like there's only one of you in the world. You're special."

Kimi wrinkles her nose. "English hard," she says with a pout. "Russian is easier."

"I know, baby," Eliot says and opens the door wider to let the team in. "Come on in, guys. I guess you're in luck. I got a pot of Japanese-style cooking on the stove. I made extra 'cause I was plannin' on taking some over next door."

"Ooh, Eliot food," Parker squeals. "I missed Eliot food."

Nate snags Hardison's elbow and pulls him back from the rest of the group. "You knew about this?"

"Yeah," Hardison hedges, "but you know Eliot. He's all scary and protective papa bear _grrr- "_ He mimics a snarling, growling bear with its claws out, "and shit, so I, y'know, didn't tell. 'Cause he's scary."

Nate's opens his mouth to reply, but up ahead of them in the hallway, Parker exclaims, "Hey, Kimi! I got you something!"

"Hey," Hardison says, rushing to catch up (and leaving Nate behind), "so did I! Me first!"

Parker scowls at him. "No, me! I said it first."

"Guys," Eliot says wearily, "don't..." He trails off when he catches the eager, hopeful look on his daughter's face. He groans. "Y'all're as bad as Linny," he grouses under his breath. "Seriously."

Kimi hops in place. Her dark curls bounce with each jiggle. "Prezen!" She claps her hands. "Prezen!"

Parker pulls something shiny out of her pocket with a flourish. "Ta-da!"

"Parker," Eliot mutters out of the side of his mouth, "Is that the- " He stops, the name of a famous jeweled puzzle box, reported stolen a dozen years ago, on the tip of his tongue. He rubs his face. "Never mind."

Kimi takes the sparkling, multi-colored, multi-faceted box from Parker's hands with wide, shining eyes. Her mouth opens in a little 'O' of wonderment. "Pretty!" She holds it up to show her father. "Papa! _Mite!_ Pretty! _Pika-pika!"_

"Say thank you, Kimi," he prompts with a smile, then when she turns towards Parker to say her thanks, he allows the smile to turn into a frown, and mouths, _"Are you crazy?!"_ at the blond thief.

Completely ignoring the angry father hovering over them, Parker shows Kimi how to press a button disguised as a cabochon sapphire to make the box fall apart. Before Kimi's face can dissolve into dismay at her new _broken_ toy, Parker says, "It's a puzzle. You have to put it back together."

She starts it for her, until the little girl understands and grabs the rest of the pieces with a grin. She plops herself on the floor to figure it out for herself. An expression of intense concentration on her face, Kimi works on putting the pieces together at an alarmingly rapid pace.

"How old is she?" Sophie asks Eliot, _sotto voce. _

"Four," he replies, with more than a hint of pride in his voice.

"She's very quick," Sophie marvels. "Look at that manual dexterity."

"She likes puzzles."

"_Owatta,"_ Kimi announces a couple of minutes later, and shows her father the reassembled jeweled box.

After Eliot is done showering her with praise, Kimi shows Sophie and Hardison. "Look! Pretty!"

Sophie compliments the golden box studded with rubies and emeralds and other precious stones with very real admiration. Hardison sulks behind his smile, but dutifully agrees with the little girl that it is indeed very pretty and shiny. Then he pulls out his present.

"Look, Kimi," he says, "This is a tablet where you can play all sorts of games. I got the classics, like Tetris and Pac Man, and then I got Angry Birds, and then there's a few I designed especially for you, baby boo! Like that one." He bends down and shows her how to press the screen to manipulate the little characters in the game.

Kimi pokes at the pad experimentally, a thoughtful look on her face. Then she grins and keeps poking. _Poke-poke-poke._

"Uh, that's not how..." begins Hardison. He gives up when Kimi takes the electronic tablet out of his hand and begins pressing the buttons randomly.

"Pyoo-pyooo!" squeals Kimi after a while. A look over the dark curly head shows Hardison that she is playing the game where she has to launch fruits at a dancing monkey. _"Mite!_ Pyoo!"

"Pyoo, huh?" says Hardison, amused. "Okay, I can work with that. That's...you're actually pretty good at that," he says. "Are you sure she's your kid, Eliot?"

Eliot growls threateningly. Then he sighs, bends down, and picks Parker's present up off the floor next to where Kimi is sitting and sets it on the coffee table. "Kimi," he says, "you can play with that later. It's bath time right now."

Kimi makes a sound of protest, but Hardison's tablet is taken out of her hand and put next to the glittering puzzle box on the table. "Papa," she whines. "I wanna play."

"You promised, sweetheart. Come on." He takes her hand so that she can't get to the toys again. To the team, he says, "I'll be a while. Just...make yourselves at home. Kimi was about to take her bath when you guys got here."

"_Papa."_ The little girl is understandably quite upset.

"Kimi. Come on, baby. You can play with your new toys later."

Eliot leads his daughter down the hallway. She turns back and waves sadly at the guests.

"Later, Kimi," Hardison says.

"We'll see you later, Kimi," Sophie waves back. "Oh, she is so adorable!" she coos to no one in particular.

Parker perches herself on Eliot's couch and fiddles around with the present she'd gotten Kimi - the world's most expensive puzzle. "Seventy-two seconds!"

Sophie looks around at the pictures on the wall. Kimi as a baby, Kimi as a toddler beaming up at the person behind the camera, Kimi wearing a pink tutu with her hair up in a tiny bun, Kimi and Eliot - _He looks completely relaxed and happy,_ Sophie thinks, _He loves that little girl so much. Of course he'd give up the job he loves doing for her. But why now?_ she thinks. _Why now, indeed? _

She spots an empty space on the wall big enough for one photo frame. She spots another on the mantel. Seeing them, Sophie comes to a conclusion.

"Hardison, Parker," Nate says, "Explain."

"I told you already, man," Hardison protests, "It's his business."

"Hardison."

"Fine," Hardison says, and pulls out a cord to connect his phone to Eliot's TV. "So Kimi's four, right? Eliot's retiring to take care of her now because- "

"Her mother died recently," Sophie finishes.

"_Et tu,_ Sophie?" Nate asks.

"Look at the missing photographs, Nate. It's a simple deduction, one you should have come to yourself."

"Sophie's right," Hardison confirms, "Nao Ishibara, 32. She was a ballet dancer in Russia before an injury caused her to retire." He pulls up a studio photograph of a beautiful young woman with jet-black hair and almond-shaped eyes. Then he starts playing a video of Nao dancing in _Swan Lake_.

He talks over the softly-playing music. "She came back home to Japan and started a dance school. It's actually doing pretty well. She was listed as a single parent in government documents until her death five months ago in a car accident. I Google translated this article and what I can make out from it is that she and Kimi were taking a walk when a car came around the corner. She pushed her daughter out of the way but she got hit. She died in the hospital without regaining consciousness. No family, other than Kimi...and Eliot, I guess."

"Oh, poor Kimi," Sophie sighs.

"She seems to be handling it pretty well," Hardison says. "Little kids."

"Hardison," Nate says sternly, "If you'd told me this earlier, we could have saved a trip."

"But Eliot," the hacker waves his hands, "Privacy, y'know?"

"Privacy?" Parker giggles, "What's that?"

"Since when have _you_ worried about other people's privacy, Hardison?" Sophie asks skeptically. He probably wanted to keep that adorable little girl all to himself.

"Hey," the hacker defends himself, "hey, just because I know all don't mean I go blabbin' it everywhere, get what I'm sayin'? Like for example, last week. Right, Sophie?" He waggles his eyebrows. "You took a trip to someplace that rhymes with 'Harris' and spent like seven hours in one store? Remember that? I didn't go an' tell everyone when I saw that. An' I sure didn't tell everyone how many bags you made the poor doorman hold. An' about how I ain't the only one here who don't tip."

Sophie makes an offended sound and re-crosses her legs on the sofa.

Parker plops herself down next to Hardison. "How many?" she asks in a loud whisper. "How many bags?"

"Double-digits, man," the hacker says in a confidential tone. "Nate's lucky he didn't go with her."

Sophie glares, and Nate rubs his head. "Guys," he starts, but loses his train of thought. The video of Nao Ishibara plays on the TV. Odile, the Black Swan's alluring, hypnotizing dance, complete with the traditional thirty-two _fouetté_ turns in a row - Kimi's mother had been a very talented dancer.

A tiny gasp behind him makes him turn around.

Kimi is standing there, with her little chin quivering and her dark eyes glued to the woman twirling on the screen.

"Sweetheart, I know you're excited, but you're dripping all over the- " Eliot freezes as he comes around the corner. He has a tiny pink bath towel in one hand that he tosses aside in favor of snatching his daughter up in his arms and turning her face into his shoulder. Kimi whimpers and grabs a handful of his shirt in a tight grip. Her wet hair drips onto his shirt, but neither of them pay any attention to the slowly growing waterstain.

"Get out," he says quietly, dangerous and deadly as a snake. He cups a large, strong hand around the back of Kimi's neck protectively, yet gently. "All of you. Get out of my house."

Hardison gulps and scrambles to unhook all his cables and put everything away. Sophie makes a tiny "ooh" sound and gathers her things, and Nate stands up slowly, wary of exactly how protective Eliot is of his family. And right now, the team, _they're_ the outsiders, the enemy. Parker stares at the little girl, such a sad little girl, not happy like she was the last time Parker met her.

Kimi lets out a cry of protest when the video of her mother cuts off. _"Mama!"_ she screams - it's heartbreaking, hearing the abandonment and fear in her voice - and scrambles desperately to get down out of her father's arms. "Mama!"

She runs to the television set and presses her hands flat against the empty screen. "Mama." Fat tears roll down her round cheeks and drip off of her chin.

Hardison looks at Eliot for a hint for what to do - should he get the hell out of dodge before Hurricane Eliot blows through the team, or should he do what his heart is telling him to do: reconnect the wires from his phone to the screen.

Eliot nods at him - _Do it - _ and crouches behind his daughter.

The video comes back - _bzzt_ - and the image of Nao Ishibara - now dancing the role of Odette, the mournful White Swan - fills the screen.

Kimi presses her hands harder against the glass. "Mama." She looks longingly behind her at her papa and says again, "Mama, Papa." Her lips quiver, and as her face crumbles, she falls back against Eliot, who gathers the sobbing, shivering girl up into his lap.

"_I know, baby,"_ he whispers into her wet hair, _"I'm sorry."_

They watch the video for a little while, sitting inches away from the television, Kimi hiccupping every so often.

"_Motto mitai?"_ Eliot asks Kimi quietly, "Do you wanna watch it?"

Kimi nods.

"Okay, then we gotta move a little farther away. I don't want you to hurt your eyes being this close. Is that okay? Can we move?"

The little dark head bobs again, so the hitter carries his daughter to the corner of the couch. She curls up against him, her big wet brown eyes never leaving the screen.

Slowly, the others move back to where they had been sitting before, slowly, silently, cautiously. Even so, in the end, they sit bunched together on one side of the couch with Eliot and Kimi isolated on the other end. Hardison turns the volume up so that the strains of Tchaikovsky's tragic ballet fill the house. Gradually, the little girl relaxes and the tears dry, and the fierce tension in her papa's arms leaches away. He shifts her into a more comfortable position on his lap.

"_Ne, Papa?" _Kimi says,_ "Mama kirei dane?"_

"Yeah," Papa agrees, _"kirei yo._ You gonna dance like that someday, Kimi-chan?"

"Yaa, Papa," Kimi says and lifts a pointed, turned-out leg high up, up, up, until her papa catches her ankle and holds it still for her for a few seconds.

Then he shifts his grip and _tickles_ the underside of her foot.

Kimi squeals and wrenches her ankle out of her mischievous father's grasp. She turns to give him an indignant look, an Eliot Spencer "somethin' wrong with you" look in miniature. _"Papa."_

Sophie and Parker giggle, and Hardison smiles. Nate looks something between amused and...sad.

"What?" Papa asks, all wide-eyed innocence. "What, Kimi?"

Kimi glares at him for a moment longer, then wriggles in his lap until she's facing him with her knees on the sofa between his legs and her little hands on his shoulders. She looks solemnly into his face.

Eliot stares back at her with the same expression.

Kimi looks into his eyes...then sneezes. She sniffs long and hard.

Eliot chuckles. "C'mere," he says and pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket. He puts it to her nose and wipes it for her. "Better?"

Kimi sniffles again and nods. Having fully forgiven her father for his minor transgression, she settles back against his chest to watch the rest of the ballet. Just then, Rothbart, the evil sorcerer, comes onstage with a thundering of ominous fanfare.

"Uh-oh," Eliot says, "It's the bad guy. Maybe we should stop here, huh?" he says, knowing the conclusion of the ballet - Odette and her prince jumping to their deaths - and not wanting to upset his daughter again.

Hardison shuts the video off, for once not complaining that he doesn't know how the movie ends.

Parker yawns and stretches. "Does this mean we can stay for dinner?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The adults don't get a chance to talk business until Kimi goes to bed. She and Eliot have a ritual, it seems. First, they do the dishes. Parker and Hardison help them with that to accommodate for the larger volume of dishes to wash. Then, they read and play music for a little while.

Having _finally_ been freed from her task of drying the dishes, Kimi runs over to the bookshelf and carefully selects one children's book and one of Eliot's books. Father and daughter settle themselves on the sofa and the team follows suit, curious. The two younger thieves have already seen this ritual, but Nate and Sophie have not.

Kimi props the book of French poems up in her lap and opens it.

"Which one, Kimi?" Eliot asks, smoothing the tangles out of his daughter's hair as he does so.

Kimi purses her lips as she flips through the pages. "This," she points.

Eliot looks over her shoulder. "What, this one?" he asks, pointing at the page opposite.

"This."

"This one?" Again, Eliot points at the other page.

Kimi turns around and looks at her silly father. _"Papa._ This." The little finger jabs at the page.

"Oh, you mean this one," Eliot says, finally pointing at Kimi's page. "Why didn't you say so from the beginning?"

"Papa." Silly Papa indeed.

Eliot chuckles and holds Kimi closer. "Alright," he says, and begins reading the love poem in fluent (although accented) French.

Sophie smiles at the scene, the usually rough and stoic hitter reading such a sensitive piece of literature to his daughter, and meaning every word of it.

"Okay, your turn," Eliot says when he gets to the end of the poem.

Kimi pouts and sighs, but in the end, she puts aside the heavy volume and opens the thinner, wider book. Hardison grins when he recognizes the cover: _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_, in Japanese. Nate feels a pang in his chest as he remembers a little boy not much older than Kimi reading the same book in English.

"Oh, he was really hungry, wasn't he, Kimi?" Eliot asks the little girl at the end.

"Yaa, real hung-y," Kimi agrees, and points at the butterfly on the last page. "Pretty."

"Yeah, hun," Eliot nods, "Pretty, just like you."

Kimi grins up at him. Silly Papa. She loves him _so_ much, even though he is _such_ a silly. Papa bends over and kisses the tip of her nose. Just because.

Kimi patters across the room to put the books back on the shelves where they belong, then runs over to the guitar propped up against the wall in the corner of the living room and begins to lug it over to the couch. Eliot reaches over and lifts it up for her.

"What are we playin' tonight, Kimi?" Eliot asks. She seems to be back to her usual self, but he knows that the wound is still sensitive.

Kimi reaches over and arranges his left hand on the frets and strings. Then she takes the guitar pick and plucks. Then she moves his fingers and plucks again. She does this for a few more chords until Eliot says, "Okay, I think I got it."

Then he plays the notes again, faster, and asks, "This song? You're gonna make me sing this one in front of my friends? Ya know they're gonna make fun of me, right, Kimi?" He continues on from the opening prompted by his daughter and begins singing in a deep, yet gentle voice,

_Come stop your crying  
It will be all right.  
Just take my hand  
Hold it tight.  
_

_I will protect you  
From all around you.  
I will be here  
Don't you cry. _

"Phil Collins," Sophie says quietly.

"Why's he embarrassed about singin' this one?" Hardison whispers.

"Tarzan!" Parker whispers back gleefully.

"The Disney movie?" Hardison asks, perking up with a grin on his face. _Blackmail!_

_For one so small,  
You seem so strong.  
My arms will hold you,  
Keep you safe and warm.  
This bond between us  
Can't be broken.  
I will be here,  
Don't you cry. _

_'Cause you'll be in my heart,  
Yes, you'll be in my heart  
From this day on  
Now and forever more.  
_

As Eliot sings, Kimi hums along and leans her cheek against the back of the sofa with her eyes closed. By the time he finishes the song, she's more asleep than awake.

Eliot puts the guitar aside and scoops her up carefully.

"More," Kimi demands sleepily, _"Mou ikko."_

"Tomorrow," Eliot says, "It's time to brush your teeth, hun. Gotta put your PJs on, get you in bed."

"Mmm, no," Kimi replies rebelliously. Black curls shake vigorously.

"Yes. Come on. Let's go. Say good night to everyone, baby."

Giving in after a big yawn, Kimi sighs tiredly and rests her cheek on Eliot's shoulder. "Nigh'-ee." She waves drowsily.

"Good night, Kimi," the team choruses obediently.

"Oh, she's so cute," Sophie says again once they disappear down the hall.

Eliot comes back presently, and when he sits down on the sofa, he is no longer Papa, but the Eliot they have come to know over the last few years.

"Now you all know," he begins. "I'm trusting you to keep her off the grid. If any of my old enemies catches wind of her..." He trails off with a grimace.

"She's safe," Sophie assures him. "Of course she's safe, Eliot."

He nods. "About earlier," he says, running a hand through his hair, "Didn't mean to scare you guys. I just- I just saw red."

"Naw, man, we get it," Hardison says. "I didn't mean for her to see that. That was my fault. I'm sorry."

"It was mine," Nate says, "I told Hardison to run it."

Eliot nods. "I figured." He looks down for a moment, then up, straight at Nate. "She needs me, Nate. More than you guys do. You get that, don't you?"

Nate nods. "I'll call your guy, if you trust him."

Eliot sighs, relieved. "I trust him. I trust him with the team."

Nate nods, thinks.

Eliot looks around at the team. "Thanks. For everything, guys. I mean it."

Parker launches herself onto Eliot, who catches her with an "oof." "We can still visit, right? We can come visit Kimi? And you, too."

"Yeah, sure," Eliot says, ignoring the fact that his daughter is so much more popular than he is, "I was actually thinking of moving me an' Kimi back to the States. I stand out too damn much here."

"Really?" Parker asks. "You could come live in Oregon with us."

"Portland has a lot of good family spots," Hardison chimes in, pulling up stats on his phone, "High-ranking schools, nice parks. It's a good place to raise a family."

Eliot meets Sophie's eyes. She just raises her eyebrows and shrugs. Microexpressions. He chuckles and shakes his head.

"Portland?"

Nate stands. "Portland."

"I'll think about it." Eliot stands, too, to let his guests out. "Nate?" He smiles, a secret little smile, and looks the older man dead in the eyes. "I trust Lindsey with my _daughter_. Seriously, call him. You need a hitter."

Nate stills. Eliot hadn't fully trusted them with Kimi, but this Lindsey guy gets that recommendation? "I'll call."

Eliot raises an eyebrow.

"I will."

Sophie walks in between them. "I'll make sure he calls him, Eliot. Don't you worry about us. We'll be alright. You just worry about that little girl of yours."

He hugs her. "Thanks, Soph."

Hardison opens his arms wide for his hug. Eliot ignores the gesture and instead claps him on the shoulder. "Go outside once in a while, man. I mean it. Don't make me fly out to Portland just to drag you for a run."

"That's called in-cen-tive," Hardison enunciates.

"Do you really want me to go an' get you?" Eliot says in his quiet, scary voice.

Parker laughs and swings her arm around Hardison's neck in an almost-chokehold. "I'll make sure he gets some air, Eliot."

Hardison squeaks and protests. "No, no, you won't. Mm-mm. No way."

Eliot firmly yet gently herds his friends outside to where they won't wake Kimi. She still has trouble sleeping, even five months after the accident. Sure enough, when he comes back inside from waving the team off, Kimi appears at her bedroom door, rubbing her eyes. A stuffed bear, one of her uncle's less extravagant gifts to her, dangles from her arm.

"Papa," she tells him sleepily, _"Mama shinjau."_

"Kimi-chan," he says, and kneels down. He brushes the sleep-tousled hair from her face. "Honey, it's a dream. Okay? It's just a bad dream."

That's a lie - Kimi's nightmare is always the same. The day her mother had been killed. Nao had pushed Kimi out of the car's path, but hadn't been able to get out of the way in time. Kimi's dream is full of blood and metal and screams. And then...

"_Papa shinjau."_

"I'm not gonna die, sweetheart. I'm not goin' anywhere," he says, soothingly, "Okay, baby? I'm not goin' anywhere. I'm not gonna die. _Shinanai."_

Then, on nights like this, it's always the same. "Sleep in your room?"

"Sure, baby. Of course you can," he says and picks his daughter up and carries her to his room. "It's gonna be okay, alright? I'm gonna take care of you. I'll be right here." He tucks her under the bedcovers and gets ready for bed himself, even though he won't be sleeping as long as she will.

She snags the hem of his boxers with a sleep-warm hand. "Papa?"

He leans over and kisses her on the forehead. "I love you, sweetheart."

"Kimi too," the little girl replies with her dark curls spread out on his pillow. Then she yawns and goes back to sleep, the bear serving as another pillow for her cheek.

He sits down on the edge of the bed and wonders how in the hell such a sweet little thing came from him, and what the hell he's doing, raising a kid by himself. He finds himself wishing that Nao was still alive, not because he had been in love with her (he had loved her, but because he was the mother of his child, and not from any romantic sentiment), but because it had seemed like she always knew what to do with Kimi. He feels helpless to stave off the looming darkness that haunts his daughter's dreams, and he finds himself wondering what Kimi's mother would have done to help her sleep better. Nao would have known what to do.

Kimi frowns and reaches a hand out to him, eyes still tightly closed. "Papa."

"I'm here, darlin'."

"_Neru jikan."_

Eliot chuckles. "Okay, baby." He gets into bed. "Good night, Kimiko."

She snuggles up into his chest. The teddy bear tickles Eliot's nose, but he doesn't care. _"Spakoyne nawche,_ Papa," Kimi replies, this time in Russian.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

**Japanese Translations (phonetic):**

_Mite - _Look

_Pika-pika_ - Shiny

_Owatta_ - Done

_Motto mitai?_ - Do you want to see more?

_Ne, Papa? Mama kirei dane?_ - Hey, Papa? Isn't Mama pretty/beautiful?

_Kirei yo_ - She is pretty/beautiful.

Chan - term of endearment

_Mou ikko_ - One more

_Mama/Papa shinjau_ - Mama/Papa is going to die.

_Shinanai_ - Not going to die

_Neru jikan._ - Time to sleep

**Russian Translation (phonetic):**

_Spakoyne nawche_ - Good night

The lyrics are from "You'll Be In My Heart." Whenever I listen to that song, I think of Kimi and Eliot. Seriously, my brain.

_Swan Lake_: The timing isn't quite right, but that was basically the last act.

There is more, okay? I just need to write it. *sigh*


	14. SLF: Son of a Gun!

AN: And the winner of the Baby Names Contest is...actually two people: **whovian42 **and** l1bra,** who gave me this _awesome_ (okay, I think it's cute anyway) idea that I "borrowed" *cough* from **Ultrawoman**. This, however, sort of takes a back seat to the main part of the story. Thank you guys for all the great name suggestions, though. ("Emmy" Emerald is super-cute, and Troy is very clever, since it is an actual name. Glenn for Glenn-Reider safe? Lol! **Jada Ryl**: Seriously, Sterling? *shakes head* Shame on you. :D)

This idea comes mostly from **FirstBorn**, but also from other reviewers who wanted to see something like this. (In other words, sneaky Eliot slipped one past the goalie. *wink-wink* See how this collection is getting to be all about how much Eliot gets around, and how ninja-like his sperm is? Seriously. It wasn't supposed to go like this. It really wasn't.)

Summary: Eliot gets a very important phone call. "Sticky Little Fingers" verse, takes place after "The Most Important Role," "Always an Uncle, Never a Dad," and "The Leverage Family Business."

* * *

**Son of a Gun!**

"What's this little one's name?" Sophie asks, cuddling the newest Hardison baby to her chest.

"That one's Gil, short for Guilder," Hardison says, grinning. He nods at where Gil's twin is currently in the process of stealing her Uncle Eliot's heart. "Baby girl over there is Florin."

"Obsolete Dutch currency?" Sophie comments, and hands Gil over to Uncle Nate. "Very nice."

"Yeah," Parker says tiredly, helping her middle child, Ruby (no longer the youngest of the bunch), up onto the bed to sit with her. She snorts. "Sure. Dutch currency."

Nate smiles at Hardison's "sneaky" reference until Eliot pulls up short.

_Hold on a minute..._ "Dammit, Hardison," the hitter growls. "I thought Parker was bad enough with her money names, but seriously? _Princess Bride?"_

"Ha!" the hacker cackles, and jabs a finger at Eliot. "I knew it! You a geek. Come on, say it. 'Anybody want a peanut?'"

Eliot scowls at Hardison until Baby Flo makes a little gurgling sound in his arms. The frown immediately melts into a slaphappy smile. "Hey there, honey," he coos at the baby. "It's not your fault your daddy gave you a silly name. You want me to beat him up for you, I'll do it. You only gotta say the word, sweetheart. I'll do it for you, darlin'."

The others - and their children - share _looks_ and roll their eyes. Typical Uncle Eliot, the big softy.

Just then, a phone rings. There's a moment of _whose phone is that?_ before Eliot hands Flo over to her daddy and fishes around in his pocket.

"Ooh," Frankie singsongs, "You're not supposed to have cell phones on in hospital rooms. They interfere with the- "

His sister smacks the back of his head. "We know that, Frankie."

The little boy pouts. "But I thought maybe Uncle Eliot didn't know," he says, rubbing his head. Then, the little lovetap from his sister all but forgotten in the excitement of finally not being the_ only boy_ in the family, he climbs up onto the bed with his mother to drop a kiss on his baby brother's forehead.

"Sisters are mean," he tells Gil, "But that's okay because I'll protect you from them. Uncle Eliot says that's my job. We guys have to stick together."

Baby Gil swats his big brother on the nose.

"Ow. Mommy, he has sharp nails."

"Sharp nails are good for climbing, Frankie."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Eliot takes his call in the hallway.

"Yeah."

"_Is this Eliot?"_ a voice asks. A woman, but very faint, very tired.

"Who's askin'?" he replies. He doesn't know this woman.

"_Charlene Roberts,"_ the woman says_. "You probably don't remember me, but we met about eleven years ago. Almost to the day, actually,"_ she adds nervously.

The memory of a face surfaces in his mind at that name. "I remember you," he says cautiously.

She gives a small laugh. _"You probably say that to all the women you sleep with."_

"No, I remember you." Charlene does have a point. He makes sure to always remember the names of all the women he...interacts with. "Brown hair, blue eyes, neon green panties, no bra," he tacks on with a smirk. Oh yeah, he remembers her.

She really laughs this time. _"Okay, I take it back. You do remember me. That makes this easier, I guess."_

Eliot pushes his hair out of his face and puts the pieces together. "You have a kid," he says, "And you're calling to say I'm the father?"

"_Unbelievable,"_ Charlene says, _"You are absolutely right. Has this happened to you before?"_

Oh shit._ Oh shit!_ "No," he finds himself saying, with a calm that he certainly does not feel. _Oh shitshitshit! _"Are you serious?!"

Charlene laughs. _"Now that's more like it. Yeah, you have a son."_

Eliot sits down on one of the hospital benches and lets out a breath. "A son? He's..." He does the math. "Ten?"

"_Yeah,"_ she says softly, _"He's ten."_

"Why now?" He has to ask. And he's a little...angry? Upset? Why didn't she tell him before? "Why are you calling now and not ten years ago? Are you sure he's mine?"

The woman on the other end of the line takes a deep, shuddering breath. _"Yes, I'm sure he's yours. We can have a test done if you want, but...I'm sure. I'm calling you now because I'm dying. And there's no one else. I have no family, except for Michael. He's all I have."_

Michael. His son. "Where are you?"

"_San Francisco."_

"Okay," he stands, and makes up his mind. "I'm coming."

"_Thank you,"_ Charlene says.

He clears his throat. "How long do you have?"

Her answer is quiet, as if she has become resigned to the fact that she is going to die. _"Five months ago, they gave me three to six months to live. Please don't ask me why I didn't call sooner. I don't really know myself."_

"It's okay," he tells her softly. "I know now. Does Michael?"

"_I told him that he has a dad out there,"_ she says, _"but I didn't know if- "_

"If I would come?" he finishes. "I'll be there on the next flight out."

"_Thank you, Eliot."_

"Thank you for calling, Charlene."

He hangs up, and stares at the wall in front of him in pure shock and disbelief. _Holy shit. Holy frickin' SHIT! Holy- How in the hell-?! Holy fu- Shitshitshitshitshit! Shit!_

When he has recovered from his minor nervous breakdown, he turns around and walks stiffly back into Parker's hospital room to tell everyone about the _other_ new addition to the family.

_Sheeee-it._

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He calls Charlene once he gets to San Francisco.

"_Hello?"_ It's not Charlene's voice, but a kid's. Michael. His son. Maybe.

_Keep it cool, keep it cool._ "Is this Michael?"

"_Yeah."_

"Is your mom there?"

"_Who is this?" _Suspicious_. Chip off the old block,_ a treacherous voice in his mind says.

Eliot doesn't know if Charlene has told her son about talking to him yet, so he just replies, "Eliot. Tell her Eliot called."

There's a pause, during which Eliot thinks that maybe, maybe she has told him._ "My mom had another emergency. We're at the hospital."_

But he just talked to her. "Which hospital?"

The kid tells him. Something about the hesitancy in his voice tells Eliot that he's used to doing things on his own without asking for help, used to taking care of himself, probably since his mother has been ill for so long.

"I'll be there in half an hour." Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, "You gonna be okay on your own 'til then, son?" _Son_.

"_I'm fine. You don't have to come."_ It's said with none of the uncertainty from before. This kid isn't a _kid_, won't accept help from anyone, despite his momentary lapse in confidence.

Right. Chip off the old block for sure. "Okay. I'll be there soon, Michael."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

There's a boy sitting by the sick woman's bedside, reading a book, when Eliot arrives at the door of the hospital room. He's a scrawny shrimp of a kid, with a shock of dark blond hair that hangs down in his eyes in an unruly, uncombed mass.

Eliot stands in the doorway and _looks_. If there was ever any doubt, he doesn't have one now. The kid is a spitting image of him at that age.

Feeling eyes on him, the boy looks up and sees the stranger standing at the door. A myriad of expressions passes over his face before he settles on a scowl. "Are you Eliot?"

"Yeah. You must be Michael."

"Are you my dad?"

_Your mom says so_ is what goes through his mind, but what comes out is "Yes." He won't order the test. He doesn't have to.

He steps into the room and looks down at the gaunt woman in the hospital bed. She looks different (of course, the years, and pain and suffering will do that), but he recognizes her. She's asleep.

"She gonna be okay?" Stupid question, when she'd called him to tell him that she was going to die.

"No," the kid says flatly, "The doctors say it's almost the end." He hasn't yet learned how to completely hide his emotions, so Eliot catches the twitch in his face, the slight quiver in his voice, that say that he is not okay with this, not okay at all, but darn it, he's not going to show it, at least not in front of a stranger (and not in front of his mother, either).

He's a brave kid.

Eliot snags a chair and sits down. "I'm sorry," he says. He doesn't know exactly what he's sorry for - that the kid's mom is dying, that he can't save her, for not being there, for not being enough.

Michael shrugs uncomfortably. Just then, Charlene moans and shifts on the bed. "Mom?" the boy says, shooting up onto his feet and taking his mother's hand. "Mom? Do you need anything?"

The woman opens pain-filled eyes and smiles at her son. For a moment, the hurt goes away and pure love takes its place. She has everything she needs right here. "Hey, honey." Then the pain comes flooding back and she closes her eyes with a sharp breath.

"Mom?" Michael says softly, "Eliot's here."

Charlene frowns groggily and turns her head. Eliot slides into her range of view. "Hi," he says, clearing his throat, "Charlie." The nickname - _"My name's Charlene, but you can call me Charlie."_ - comes to his tongue unbidden. He knows this woman, was intimate with her, long ago.

Morphine-clouded eyes crinkle up at the corners in a radiant smile. "You can stop trying to prove that you remember our one night together," she quips. "I get it."

He chuckles and leans down to kiss her wasted cheek. "You look beautiful when you smile."

"And now I remember why I got into bed with you," she says, flattered, still a woman underneath all the weariness and pain.

Eliot raises an eyebrow and glances at the kid standing beside him.

"He knows," Charlie says softly, "No secrets between us, huh, buddy?"

"No secrets, Mom," Michael agrees, but Eliot can see that there are, like how scared he is that his mother is leaving him, and, Eliot thinks as he looks at the kid's worn clothing and holey shoes, how much he is sacrificing so that his mother won't have to worry as much about money and paying the bills. Looking back at the mother, he sees that she does know and does worry, but that she pretends she doesn't to give her son peace of mind and maybe some semblance of control.

"Well," he says, "I guess I better not have any, either. So you know all about that one night, huh, kid?" He settles back in his chair and crosses one foot over his knee. "Guess that means you know all about your conception. So much for sharing that story."

Michael makes a horrified face. "Ew."

His mother laughs, a full-hearted laugh. "No," she says when she has her breath back, "I didn't go that far into detail. We haven't had the sex talk yet," she says in an audible aside to Eliot, teasing her son.

"Oh," Eliot says, and winks, "So that's my job then. Talk about awkward. I remember the one I had with my dad. I don't know who ended up more embarrassed, me or him. Or the lady who lived next door, who just _happened_ to stop by for a visit with my mama right when he was getting to the good part."

Charlie grins and shakes her head, and even Michael is swayed into giving Eliot a small smile.

The rest of the afternoon is spent telling anecdotes, ridiculous, empty stories, just to keep the sick woman laughing and her son's mind off of her impending death.

"I'll take care of him," he reassures Charlie when Michael gets up to use the restroom, although he is anything but confident in his ability to raise a kid without permanently damaging him. "You don't have to worry about him."

She'd smiled wanly and squeezed his hand. "Thank you. I knew you were a good one when I saw you that first time."

"Somehow, I doubt that this was what you were expecting that night eleven years ago," he says. "God knows I wasn't."

She shakes her head. "No, me neither. But I guess I saw something in you. Something good."

He doesn't know what to say to that.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Charlene Roberts dies the next day in the small hours of the night. She slips away with her son's name on her lips and a smile lighting up her eyes for the last time.

Eliot pretends not to see the quiet tears the boy sheds over his mother's body.

He's on his own now. And he doesn't know what to say, what to do to make it better.

So he takes his son home to his family. They'll know how to help him raise this kid who is too much like him; they've been dealing with him and his shit for years. They'll know how to handle him. Because he certainly doesn't know how to be a dad.

He's a dad._ Oh shit._

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

AN: There is more...in my head. Again, need to write it out. *drags ball and chain to laptop* Why do I do this to myself? Every year...Oh. I know. Duh. *points to self* Attention-whore.

So this verse started with Uncle Eliot. I needed Eliot to be an uncle and never a dad (like one of the earlier chapters says). That's why it's P/H and N/S. And then a bunch of people told me they wanted a mini-hitter, so...here he is. Because all of a sudden, I wanted to see that, too. I'd like to write at least one more that has Eliot as the dad of a ten-year-old who just lost his mom and is still mourning her, and as a result of that, gets into fights at school, etc. Because he is his father's son, after all. Would you guys read that? Whatever. I'm writing it.

Review Replies to anons (I know, I know, sooo behind, but I'm all caught up now, right? Did I miss anyone? Thanks so much by the way!):

**Drjones:** I actually found _some_ fanfiction for _Rescue 77_. There's a crossover with _Leverage_ on LJ called "A Good Man's Heart" by wah-keetcha. And then there's a site that's all about _R77_ fanfic (about 10-15 of them) that's on angelfire dot com by someone named jojosworld. If I could put links on this site, I would, grr.

Hm, Wick helping Eliot? So basically, Eliot getting hurt and ending up on Wick's ambulance? Hmmmm...

**Jess:** Eliot will not be the team's hitter in the Kimi-verse simply because he needs to take care of his kid. However, if the team ever needs two hitters for a job, or the new hitter gets injured and can't work, Eliot will work back-up if necessary.


	15. K: Meet Uncle Lin Lin

Summary: The team meets the replacement hitter Eliot recommended. Same verse as "Kimi" and "One Reason." Crossover.

AN: So I spent an hour or so this afternoon fiddling around with Photoshop, and now I'm going to start changing the story image every chapter, too, so you know which verse the ficlet is in. Just keep in mind that the images are for the overall story, so if you're a bit late reading (i.e. I've already posted the next day's chapter), the image will be different. I'm actually quite pleased with myself, hehe! (If you want to see the one for the "Sticky Little Fingers" verse early, you can go check out the original story [titled..."Sticky Little Fingers" - surprise!] in my regular story list.)

* * *

**Meet Uncle Lin-Lin**

They file into their new headquarters, still arguing about the new hitter Eliot has hired to replace him. It ends with Nate pulling out his phone and showing everyone that he _is_ going to call this Lindsey guy.

"It's ringing," he tells the team.

They glare at him, arms crossed. _Okay._ And then they frown. Because there's a ringing sound, and it's not coming from Nate's phone, or any of theirs. They look at each other, then rush into the next room from which it seems like the sound is originating; Nate runs without ending his call.

Parker stops in the doorway, making Hardison bump into her, and Sophie halts just in time to keep herself from colliding into the two of them. Nate slides in beside her so that he can be at the front of the pack, so he can protect his team.

Protect them from the man standing with his back to them, in the shadows of the room where Nate plans his schemes. He's reading the notes on the marker board. Nate flicks the light-switch, but the man is still facing away from them.

Hardison finds his voice first. "How'd you get past the facial recognition security? I designed that software myself!"

"It was ridiculously easy," the mysterious man says, humor tingeing his voice, teasing them, taunting them. His voice is familiar, like..."I just walked right in."

"Seriously. What was it?" Hardison asks, unsatisfied. "Where's the hole in my program? How'd you do it?"

The man chuckles, walks around the table with the papers and blueprints scattered on it. His face remains hidden from them. Nate is sure that it's intentional. There's a reason. There's a reason for everything. "Don't beat yourself up," the guy says, "I used the oldest trick in the book."

"Which is?" Nate asks, although he already knows.

The man finally turns around. Eliot's face smirks back at them under shorter hair. "Genetics."

All of them (except for Nate, who had identified the voice as too much like Eliot's to not be someone from his family, a brother or a cousin) stare. Jaws drop.

"Ohhh, I get it now," Parker says, nodding and grinning madly, "You hacked Hardison's security with DNA!"

"You're his brother," Sophie adds, _"That's_ why he said he'd trust you with his daughter's life."

Eliot's twin hops up and seats himself on the table. He looks relaxed, but looks can be deceiving. "Yeah, I've babysat the kid a few times. Heard you met her. She's pretty great, isn't she? Cute kid, real sweetheart ."

"Lindsey, right?" Nate asks. "I didn't call you. Before, I mean."

"No," Lindsey agrees, "But you just did right now. Can I assume that you meant to get me here to meet?"

"You can assume."

Lindsey looks down at his hands, then back up at Nate, blue eyes twinkling like two cold stars. "You realize that I heard the conversation leading up to the phone call?"

Nate is silent.

"You don't trust me," Lindsey says slowly, not a question, but a statement. "You trust Eliot."

"Eliot, yes."

"But not me. You are one suspicious bastard," Lindsey says, laughing slightly (but it's not exactly a _nice_ laugh), "I like you."

He turns to Hardison, who is tapping away on his phone, trying to find references to Eliot's brother in his files, angry that his security got tricked by D-frickin'-NA. "Try 'McDonald,' kid. You won't find anything if you look for 'Lindsey Spencer.'" He gets glared at for his trouble. _Kid._ "Hey, just trying to help," he says, raising his hands in a mock 'don't shoot me' gesture.

Hardison finally gets him. "A lawyer? The hell we need a lawyer for? Unless we get caught. Which we won't."

Lindsey shrugs. "Old job. I have a new career now."

"What do you do?" Nate asks, so he can add this newest team member's skills to his toolbox.

"I procure unique items for a select clientele," Lindsey says, as if it's an oft-stated motto, "A very select clientele. But I'm pretty flexible, when it comes to my brother and favors."

"And your fee?"

"Same as Eliot."

Hardison makes a disbelieving face. "You realize he was workin' for free. 'Cause we made it big on our first job? You know that, right?"

Lindsey looks at them. It's a look that is both familiar to them and alien. "I'm keeping him safe at home with his kid," he finally says, "That's payment enough for me."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"_Hi-ee!"_

"Kimi? Hey. Where's Papa?"

Lindsey can hear Eliot talking to her, then his brother's voice comes on. _"Hey, Lindsey."_

He laughs. "What happened? Did she steal your phone or something?"

"_Shut up."_

"Hey, the kid's a born thief, just like her dad."

"_Whatever. She's gonna be a dancer."_

"So you keep saying."

"_What do you want?"_ Classic angry Eliot.

"Jeesh, a little gratitude wouldn't be taken amiss. I'm in."

Eliot sighs, and Lindsey can hear the weariness. _"Thanks. I owe ya."_

"No, you don't."

"_Linds, I- "_

"Eliot, you don't shut up now, I'm gonna hang up."

"_Thank you."_

"Yeah."

"_Wanna talk to Kimi?"_ Eliot asks, a peace offering of sorts. _"I can't tell if that's her potty dance or her 'wanna talk to Uncle Lin-Lin' dance." _

An enraged _"Papa!" _can be heard over the line, making Lindsey laugh. Oh, Kimi. He loves that kid, despite the ache in his heart whenever he sees her and thinks of another little girl who never had a chance.

"_Hi-ee, Unc-o Lin-Lin!"_

"Hi, princess. How's it going?"

"_Same-o, same-o,"_ Kimi says, mimicking her father's pattern of speech.

"Is that so?" Lindsey asks, not being able to - or wanting to - keep the smile out of his voice.

"_Yaa."_

"So did you just wake up, Kimi?" It should be morning over there in Japan. "Did you already have breakfast? What did you eat?"

"_Pancake. Papa made lots, all hearts, an' put lot of shiroppu on them,"_ Kimi tells him, although he already knows from his visits there that Eliot always makes Kimi's pancakes in the shape of hearts, and that Kimi likes to drown them in maple syrup.

"Really? I wish I was there. I love pancakes. Were they yummy?"

"_Yaa. Comin' here?"_

"When I get the chance, yeah. I'll miss you 'til then, sweetheart."

"_Miss you too!"_

"Okay, I'm gonna say goodbye, alright?"

"_By-ee, Unc-o Lin-Lin!"_

"Bye, Kimi."

"_Love you."_

Lindsey's heart skips a beat. God, it hurts to hear that from a kid who's not his. "I love you, too, monkey. Bye."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

AN: I know, I know, you want to know about these parts, right? _"He loves that kid, despite the ache in his heart whenever he sees her and thinks of another little girl who never had a chance" _and_ "God, it hurts to hear that from a kid who's not his."_

So. People asked me (in reviews) who the uncle referred to in "Kimi" was, and I gave them a choice from three possibles: Lindsey McDonald _(Angel),_ Jack Chase _(Close to Home),_ or Wick Lobo _(Rescue 77)._ The winner was Lindsey, with Jack in a close second. So what I did was I fused them into a hybrid. He was Lindsey for most of his life, then spent a couple of years as Jack until his wife and baby died in a car accident (*spoilers* AU of the first season finale where Jack was the one who died /*spoilers*). (Note: "monkey" is a pet name that Jack used for his daughter Hailey.) Then he went back to being Lindsey. This means that he is not the Lindsey from my "McDonald Boys" verse. Everyone understand that okay? If there's anything from either show that needs explaining, you can ask and I'll put the info in the AN for everyone else because if one person is confused, odds are, more people are.

Alright, moving on...

"I procure unique items for a select clientele." - Lindsey knew another thief named Bela (itsy-bitsy _Supernatural_ crossover) who went to Hell when the deal she made ten years previously went through. He would have negotiated the deal for her (she got the crap end of it), being the awesome ex-Wolfram and Hart lawyer that he is, but he didn't really like her all that much. Besides, Hell isn't as bad as they make it out to be. So his morals are a bit on the gray side. So what.

As for the team calling Eliot up and complaining about "Why all the mysteriousness and secrecy when _he's your twin brother?!"_...It's because Eliot's paranoid like that - And he has a weird sense of humor.


	16. SLF: SOS

Summary: Eliot is convinced that he is an awful father. His son is hurting, and he doesn't know what to do. "Sticky Little Fingers" verse. This takes place after "The Most Important Role," "Always an Uncle, Never a Dad," "The Leverage Family Business," and "Son of a Gun!"

* * *

**S.O.S.**

Eliot walks to the closed door of his son's room and listens. He can hear the muffled hiccups and sobs behind the door. The sound of the boy's grief makes his heart ache, worse than anything ever has before in his life.

The strength of the emotions the ten-year-old evokes in him never fails to surprise him. He hadn't known about Michael's existence for the first ten years of his life, but God, he loves him. Eliot loves his team and his nieces and nephews, but he _loves_ his son with a fierceness that scares him if he thinks about it too hard.

He stands there for a few minutes more, listening, then turns around and walks silently back to his own room. He pulls out his phone and dials a number.

"_Mm, hello?"_ It's the middle of the night, and any sane person should have been asleep.

"Sophie?"

"_Eliot?"_ He can hear the rustling of sheets, and Nate's sleepy voice in the background, _"What's wrong?"_

"I- " he starts, "Sorry for calling so late, but I- uh..."

"_Is it Michael?"_ Sophie asks, always so perceptive.

"Yeah," he replies, relieved somehow, because she'll know what he should to do. "He's- " He stops, not wanting to betray confidences, not that Michael has confided anything in him at all. He closes his eyes and marches on. "I don't know what to do," he whispers. "He's- I don't know what to do, Soph."

"_Is he...crying?"_ she asks delicately. _"He just lost his mother, Eliot. He's only ten. It's no wonder he misses her."_

"Yeah, I know," he says helplessly, "but what do I do?"

"Eliot," she sighs, _"Have you been standing outside his bedroom door just listening? Of course you have_," she goes on without pausing, _"Now you go right in there and comfort your son, you hear me?"_

"How?" he hisses, "How, Sophie? What do I say? What do I _do?"_ By now, his voice has a slight hysterical edge to it.

"_You'll know,"_ Sophie says, _"Believe me, you'll know. Now go in there, and don't be a big baby about it."_

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She understands, she really does. She herself had found motherhood both difficult and easy.

It is so easy to love your child, from the tiny flicker of life on the screen, to the wide-eyed little bundle your arms, to the bossy, dark-haired beauty who rules the house. It's so easy to love this _life_ you've created, yet it's crazy how much you fear making a mistake and ruining her life forever. All those decisions that you had shrugged off before motherhood - what you eat, what you say, what you do, where you go, how you do things - all those little decisions now seem monumental in their importance.

So she understands how Eliot feels, she does.

Eliot, who had never expected to be a father, who had resigned himself to being - no, not _resigned -_ who had _relished_ being an uncle to the Ford and Hardison children, had suddenly and without warning found himself the father of a motherless ten-year-old boy. A sullen, scared, angry child in mourning.

It's no wonder that he doesn't know what to do.

But she had meant what she'd said to him, that once he saw the boy, he _would_ know what to do. His paternal instincts will kick in, and she knows that he has them because she has seen him with the children, her child and Hardison and Parker's. He has those instincts as powerfully as any of them do.

He'll be fine.

Still, she thinks, as she slips into her slumbering daughter's room and smoothes down her hair and kisses her on her darling little forehead, she'll check on him in the morning to make sure. She gives Irene's coverlet one more gentle tug and a tuck, and goes back to bed.

"He okay?" Nate mumbles.

"The usual anxiety of a new parent," she replies, snuggling down into the warm sheets. She yawns and stretches. "He'll be fine."

Nate snorts. "That's what he gets for laughing at us before."

"Don't say that," Sophie huffs, giving him a small swat on the chest, "That's awful. Poor Michael."

"He'll be fine," Nate says, "He's his father's son. You can see that a mile away."

"He's a child. He misses his mother," Sophie says, thinking of her own daughter. Michael is only a year older than Irene. "Don't be so callous."

Nate reaches over and pulls her in closer. "He'll be fine," he murmurs, "They'll be fine. We'll help them, the way Eliot helped us with Irene."

"Mm, yes, we will," she says, and falls back asleep again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In the morning, she gets up early, makes breakfast for her family, kisses her husband goodbye, and instructs him not to let Irene be late for school. And to make sure that her outfit matches her shoes, dear.

Nate grunts into his coffee and waves her off. "Don't smother them, Sophie," he says to her retreating back. Then he shrugs. Eliot will tell her when enough is enough, if he feels suffocated by her mother-henning.

She uses the key Eliot gave her to unlock the door to his apartment, and quietly steps inside. She makes sure that she's not silent enough to startle him into tackling her down, but if Michael is asleep, she doesn't want to wake him, either. He'll have had a tough night.

She walks down the hallway to Michael's room, instinctively knowing that that is where she will find Eliot.

Her conjecture is proved correct when she pushes open the door and sees the hitter sitting against the headboard of the twin-sized bed with his son curled up against his stomach. His arm wraps around the boy protectively and his other hand rests gently on the curly head. He's not asleep, but it looks like he spent the rest of the night in that position.

He looks up as Sophie enters.

"How did it go?" she murmurs.

"I can't do this," he whispers back, his forehead furrowing anxiously, "I'm gonna screw him up."

Sophie tuts and sits down on the bed, gently, gently, so as not to wake the sleeping boy. "He looks alright to me," she says, "He trusts you now, doesn't he? Otherwise, he wouldn't have ended up like that." She reaches out and strokes Michael's back in a soothing motion.

"He tired himself out," Eliot explains, "He just fell asleep like this. That's all. He still thinks I'm a stranger who just happens to have donated a sperm cell."

Sophie heaves a big sigh and closes her eyes. Upon opening them, she cups a hand around Eliot's cheek. "Alright, big guy," she says firmly, "This is your wake-up call. You are not horrible with children. Look at Irene and Carrie and Frankie. They are all perfectly happy, wonderful children. They love you. And you have had a lot to do with the way they turned out."

"But they're your kids. They're not mine," he says, looking down at _his_ child, "The responsibility's not mine with them. Michael is mine_. _If he grows up _wrong_, then that's my fault."

"He is not going to grow up wrong," Sophie says, "We'll help you," she adds encouragingly, "Alright? You're not going to screw this up. It is actually quite hard to screw up raising a child. Parenting is a learning experience. You make a lot of mistakes, but you also figure out what works. And the reward is when you see how much your child has grown, and how much they love you for loving them. You are not going to break him, Eliot."

Eliot gently smoothes the tangled curls away from his son's face, in an unwitting echo of Sophie's action several hours before. He sighs and closes his eyes. "Thanks, Sophie."

"You're welcome," she replies, and pats his knee. "Feel better?"

"Yeah," he replies, "Still scared as hell though."

Sophie smiles. "That's normal. Be prepared to feel like that for the rest of your life, Eliot."

He scowls at her, then chuckles. "I bet alla you 're laughing at me right about now, huh? Freakin' out like this."

She stands, and leans over to kiss him on the cheek. "We've all been through this, every one of us." She pauses for a beat. "But to answer your question, yes, we are all laughing, and perhaps later on, we'll start buying him 'very cool' toys like drum sets and electric guitars, eh? After all, we have to do our duties as his _loving_ aunts and uncles."

Eliot hangs his head. "I'm so screwed."

"Mm-hm," Sophie agrees, and slips out of the room to start the coffee in Eliot's immaculate kitchen.

He'll be alright. They both will.


	17. TW: Two Wolves

Summary: Eliot's father meets the Leverage team. Part of the "Two Wolves" verse, which begins with "Lookin' At Me With Those Big Blue Eyes," then continues with "Brother From Another Mother" and "From the Letter That I Got Last Fall."

AN: The title is supposed to be a sort-of pun. My OC Billy's last name is Two Wolves, and Eliot is often referred to as a "lone wolf."

Edit 9/13: This used to be called the "Spirit Boy" verse until I changed it and went with "Two Wolves" because I have another unrelated story called "Spirit Boy."

* * *

**Two Wolves**

Billy has never had help moving into a new place. At least, help that wasn't obligatory because they worked for the place where he'd bought his cheap furniture or something like that. It's a funny feeling now, having a young guy help him lift the other end of the couch and the bed, and having him sticking around for pizza and beers afterward. It's an even funnier feeling realizing that this kid who isn't a kid at all but a man several years past thirty is his son, his Rosie's boy.

He doesn't talk much, his son.

He says he works security for a consulting company. When asked if it's a good job, if he likes it, Eliot replies that it's the best he's ever had. The small smile that twitches at the corners of his lips and the crinkling of his eyes as he says this tell Billy that Eliot is telling the truth about his job instead of lying to make himself look good in his dad's eyes.

That's good. It's good that his son's not a liar. Billy's spent too much time with liars to like them much. Billy doesn't lie. Like his son, he doesn't talk much to begin with; this is the best way to not tell a lie.

They're a little awkward with each other. It's to be expected, after all. That handshake when Billy had come out of prison was the first time they'd ever touched in all of Eliot's life. They'd seen each other before, but it was only through the glass separating the inmates from their visitors, and all of those visits had been before Rosie had died.

Eliot doesn't remember him; he tells him that much. He barely remembers his mother. He'd lived with a friend of hers for a while after Rosie's death - he calls her Auntie Mae - whom he has started to go back and visit recently after finding out that one his coworkers had been one of this aunt's foster kids. By some coincidence, or luck, or maybe even fate, they had ended up working together.

It's plain that Eliot likes the kid - Billy can't tell how old this Hardison is, but Eliot evidently sees him as a younger brother, a very annoying younger brother - and likes the company he's keeping at his job. That's good. It's good that he's happy. It's hard to find a job where you can be happy with what you're doing. It's hard to be happy with your life.

It seems that the people he works with are all his friends, and that it's a pretty small company. When asked what sort of consulting the company does, Eliot only gives the enigmatic reply: "All kinds of things. You got a problem, we can usually fix it."

The questions aren't all one-sided. Eliot asks Billy about his mother, at first tentatively, but gradually, he starts asking things that he'd always wondered or only half-remembered. Her favorite color, her favorite kind of music. Her perfume - he'd always associated a certain scent with her, but had never been sure if he'd only made it up or if it was a real memory. He'd gotten Billy's letters in the mail, both of them, but they had left him hungry for more.

Somehow or other, Billy finds himself telling Eliot that while he'd been completely guilty of his first crime ("I was a dumb kid in love, and in my mind, the only way I was gonna get the girl was if I went in, guns blazing. It never occurred to us to just wait 'til we both turned eighteen." "Did you mean to do it? Kill him?" "I don't rightly know. I know I wanted to scare him, but he had a gun, too, and I guess I didn't wanna die." "Yeah, I know that feeling." "It's different in the army, I suppose." "In the army, they tell you to do it and you don't have to think about why you're doing it. And then when you do start thinking, you don't know why it has to be done."), he hadn't done the second ("Wrong place, wrong time, and I was the only guy in a mile radius with a record, the only one who'd killed a man. Didn't matter that I'd been walking the straight and narrow ever since I got out. I'd killed, and that made me a guy who would rob the store, even though it was years ago and I'd done my time and I _didn't do it.")_

That gets him a quiet, thoughtful look from his son, and he thinks that maybe he's said too much, that maybe he sounds like the rest of the guys in the clink, always saying that they didn't do it, that they were innocent, that they were really just good guys down on their luck.

Then Eliot says, "Most people, they'd say they did the robbery, didn't kill the man. Or they'd say they didn't do either. But not you."

"It's the truth," Billy says, wanting his son to _know, _"I ain't a liar."

"Yeah. I know," Eliot nods, "You know, you can get your case looked at again. See if they can find the guy who actually did it."

Billy shakes his head. "What's that gonna fix? All anyone will see when they see me is still an ex-con, a killer, a robber. I did time, and that's all anyone will ever see."

"You're a good guy," Eliot says.

"I killed a man."

"Over thirty years ago. People can change." Eliot pauses, and his eyes flicker down to his scarred hands. "People change."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He should have seen it coming, he really should have seen it.

He'd found a job working for a gardener who doesn't ask questions, doesn't speak English, and doesn't pay much. A job's a job.

Besides, Billy likes being outside all day after being cooped up for so long. He's good with his hands, good with plants and dirt. Things grow for him; he pretends that the flowers and trees and shrubs are his children, and they're growing up strong and green and beautiful because he's taking good care of them. He pretends that it makes up for not being there to take care of his real child when he'd needed him the most.

He comes home from work one day to find people in his apartment. Eliot and four others. Must be those guys he works with, his friends.

Billy stands awkwardly at the door, key ring in his hand, very aware of his grass- and dirt-stained clothes, the mud caked on his work boots, and the fact that he had _meant_ to shave that morning but hadn't felt like scraping that razor across his face after all. He pulls the bandana off of his head and wipes his hands on it, trying to get at least some of the grime off.

"Hey, Billy," Eliot says, "You gave me the key, so I uh- " He pauses, a little self-conscious. "These are my friends."

He introduces them - they're all clean-cut and well-dressed - and then introduces him as his dad. He's right to be embarrassed; Billy isn't much to be proud of on a good day, and right now, he looks every inch the scum his rap sheet says he is.

_Smile and nod, smile and nod, gotta be polite._ Billy attempts what he thinks might be a friendly smile and nods his greeting at them. "Hi. Eliot's told me about you. Excuse my appearance. I just got offa work."

The brunette woman, Sophie, smiles and comes forward, all poise and elegance and silk. "No, it's quite all right," she says with some kind of British accent, "After all, we did barge in on you like this without any sort of warning." She takes his rough hand in her clean, soft, well-manicured one and continues, "We wanted to meet you. Eliot will talk about nothing but you."

Behind her, Eliot makes a face and a pink tinge slowly rises in his cheeks. The young black man, Hardison, smirks at that reaction, and the blonde girl, Parker, grins wide and snorts. The remaining man, about Billy's age or maybe a bit younger, remains impassive.

The boss, Billy thinks, this Nate guy is Eliot's boss. Why is the boss here?

Billy doesn't know what to say to be polite. He's not quite sure that what the woman just said, that Eliot won't stop talking about him, is exactly the truth.

Eliot jumps in, eager to dispel at least some of the discomfort. "I've got news for you, and the team wanted to come along."

News? For him? Billy's confusion must have showed on his face because Eliot goes on, "The guy who robbed the store, the real bad guy, we found him. It was actually a local organization who had a deal with a few dirty cops and a judge. It was a multimillion-dollar scheme until we caught 'em. The guy on top, we got him, no wiggle room. He's gonna go to trial. The dirty cops and the judge are under investigation."

Billy stares at his son, speechless. "The guy who's responsible for robbing that store? You mean the robbery I went to jail for? You found him? It was more than one? Dirty cops an'...Jesus." He runs a hand through his hair. "Sounds like somethin' out of a movie."

Eliot grins, proud as punch. "Yeah, well, we got 'em all. We're gonna clear your name."

"How?" Billy shakes his head. "How did you even find him? Them?"

"Hardison's a bit of a whiz with computers," Sophie explains. "We did a bit of digging, and," she pauses dramatically, "we got the whole outfit."

"How?" Billy says again, since he is so dumbfounded by the news that all he can do is repeat himself.

The blonde smiles. It occurs to him that the overall effect is a bit on the manic side of sane. "We conned him. It's what we do. We're thieves. Didn't Eliot tell you?"

Eliot grits his teeth and hisses at Parker. Then he turns to his father. "I didn't lie," he says quickly, not wanting Billy to think that he's a liar (well, he is, but...it wasn't a complete lie), "I mean, not really. I'm the hitter for the team. That means I- "

"I know what a hitter is," Billy interrupts, holding his hand up. He needs a minute to process this information. He sits down on his new couch, stained jeans be damned. He runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head again.

"Figured it was something like that," he says slowly, "Regular security doesn't end up having to fistfight every week, one, 'cause they mostly use guns, and two, a company with five people working there can't be all that dangerous." He looks at his son, who looks a little taken aback himself. "And besides, you haven't looked like you were itching to start a bar fight any of the times we've gone out for a beer. So you ain't one of those guys who gets drunk and tears the house down."

Eliot's mouth works. "I- uh...What?"

The rest of his coworkers, his team, look befuddled as well.

"I'm smarter than I look," Billy smirks and holds up his fist. "Knuckles, kid. Only way to split 'em open like that is to hit something. Or someone. And you've had bruised knuckles every time I've seen you."

"Ohhhh, I get it. Is it _distinctive?"_ the blonde girl whispers and giggles. "Distinctive knuckles."

Eliot throws her a glare. He turns back to Billy and shifts on his feet. "You...don't mind?" Now the kid looks...a bit more like a kid instead of the gruff, war-weary man who'd met him at the prison gates.

"Son," Billy points at himself, "Do I look like a hypocrite to you? If you ain't ashamed to have an ex-convict for a father, then why the hell should I be ashamed that my son is _helping_ people?"

"Aww," the black guy says, and holds his arms out. "Group hug!" He runs up to Eliot like that, as if knowing he'll be rebuffed, but also knowing that he's safe as houses - Eliot won't hit him, no matter how much he growls and avoids the hug.

The rest of them grin and chuckle at the exchange, as if this is an everyday occurrence.

Billy sits on his couch and whistles low. His son is a thief. That reminds him..."Hey, sweetheart," he says to the little blonde, "you the pickpocket on this team?"

Parker blinks at him, surprised. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"I'd like my wallet back, please," he says quietly with a small smile.

The pickpocket frowns, then hands him the wallet. "Seriously, how'd you know?"

"You ever been in jail?" he asks, putting his money back where it belongs, "You pick up a lotta things in there. Besides, I shoulda been sittin' on it if it was still in my pocket."

She tilts her head. "You are Eliot's dad," she says, sounding amazed.

For some reason, everyone laughs again.

"Billy," Sophie says, "I've been meaning to ask you about those pieces." She points at a couple of unframed canvases propped up against the wall. "Did you paint them?"

"Yeah," he replies. Since his release, he has begun painting again. Inside, paint had been one of the prohibited items in the long list of banned objects, so he had had to settle for graphite and colored pencils. He's not a bona fide artist, but it makes him feel good, releases all that pent-up anger and rage he'd learned to suppress so long ago.

"Yeah," he says, "it's kind of a hobby of mine."

Sophie walks over to the one closest to her and looks at it for a while. The others follow suit, now that their interest has been piqued. Billy shifts uneasily on the couch, feeling a little exposed due to the attention his painting is getting.

"It's not much," he says, embarrassed, "I ain't Picasso."

"No, no," Sophie says, "It's very good. It's the colors. And the brush strokes. They're so vibrant, alive!"

"Mm-hm," Hardison agrees. "It's good."

"It feels like..." Parker purses her lips, "Jumping from the top of a sequoia. It feels like outside. It feels like free."

What? Billy has to blink several times to get what the thief just said. He looks to Eliot, who makes a subtle _crazy_ sign at his temple in the guise of scratching his head.

The girl has a point. He'd painted this one before the others, with his fingers still tingling from his first taste of freedom.

"Nate," Sophie says to Eliot's boss, "Doesn't this remind you of Sicily that summer of '92?"

Nate examines the painting with a critical eye. "Wasn't that '93?"

"Nate," Sophie glares, looking very upset, "I can't believe you forgot! It was '92, because that was the year I stole the Genovian crown jewels."

Billy can feel his eyebrow going up, especially when Nate shrugs, then turns and smirks at him. Billy hides a smile. The man had made the mistake on purpose to vex his girlfriend (because what else can they be but lovers?).

"Billy, I'd like to buy it," Sophie says then, taking him completely by surprise, yet again. "Will you sell it to me?"

"I- You- What?" Billy stands up and goes over to the painting. "This thing? You wanna buy it?"

"Yes, of course," the woman says. Billy is starting to get the feeling that all of his son's friends have gone a mite off the deep end. "I like it."

"Hell," he says, bending down to pick it up, "you like it so much, I'll give it to you."

Sophie immediately begins to protest, "Oh, no, I couldn't." And then she says, an eager glint in her eye, "Really?"

He chuckles and hands it over. "Sure. It's the least I can do."

Sophie squeals and takes it, looks at it up close, looking very pleased with her new acquisition. Then she looks over at the other canvas propped up against the wall. "If you're giving me this one, then I'll buy that one," she says, "Twenty thousand."

Billy's sure his eyeballs are near popping out of his head. "Lady," he says, "are you out of your mind?"

"Excuse me?" Sophie looks offended, while her friends burst out in peals of laughter.

Billy looks at his grinning son. "Are you sure it's the blonde who's crazy? Seems to me, it's the other one."

"Hey," Eliot shrugs, eyes twinkling just like his mama's used to when she was feeling mischievous, "She likes it. She's got the money, if you're wonderin' about that."

Twenty _thousand?_

"I can haggle prices, if you like," Sophie says, "But I won't go over thirty."

She's playing with him, getting back at his "crazy" comment.

"Why do you want them?"

"Because I like them, and I always get what I want," the woman replies, and Billy doesn't doubt her this time. "I think they are very good and have a lot of potential."

"Potential for what?"

"If you get yourself a dealer," she says, "you could sell these. I can recommend one if you like."

"Ooh, my dealer's better," Parker cuts in.

Hardison adds his two cents. "No, _I_ got the best dealer."

Billy looks down at the painting. It's something that had come out of him one night when he couldn't sleep. He'd gotten up and painted, just painted out all those memories, dreams, fears, all that anger, guilt, grief. He's painted his happiness at being reunited with his son, the ache he feels when he looks at Rosie's eyes in the boy's face.

He looks at Nate, who has remained mostly silent throughout the visit, and he looks at his son. The other three are still arguing about who has the best art dealer. He looks at his painting again.

"I don't paint because I think I'll make money out of it," he says, straining his voice a little to be heard over the three voices, "I paint to..."

"To feel? To create?" Parker. "Like Eliot cooks."

"You can have this one too, if you still want it," he tells the brunette, "But I don't need the money."

She smiles, this time softly, gently. He looks around at his son's friends, and they all have the same sort of pleased, satisfied look. He sees the proud expression in his son's eyes, as if he's done something, passed some sort of test.

"We can hang it next to Old Nate," Parker says.

That starts another squabble amongst the three vocal thieves.

Billy frowns in confusion. Old Nate?

Nate chuckles and says, "Long story."

Billy runs a hand through his hair again, still dazed at the way his evening is going. "Know what? I need a beer, or I'll go crazy myself."

"You wanna be careful hanging out with us," his son warns with a half-wink, "Crazy's contagious."

Then, as they're all filing out the door to go to the bar across the street (after Billy changed out of his work clothes - and shaved), he leans in close and says, "I like your art, too. I liked that drawing."

The first letter Billy had sent to Eliot had been a sketch and nothing else. A laughing child and his mother.

Billy feels a bubble of something like pride in his chest. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Eliot says, "Sophie ain't gonna get her hands on that one. Don't you worry about that."


	18. SLF: Rebel with a Cause

Summary: Eliot finds himself in yet another quandary when he gets a call from his son's school about a fight. "Sticky Little Fingers" verse, after "The Most Important Role," "Always an Uncle, Never a Dad," "The Leverage Family Business," "Son of a Gun!" and "S.O.S."

* * *

**Rebel with a Cause**

They're on the job when Eliot gets the call.

"Yeah."

_"__Mr. Spencer? This is Principal Davis from your son's school."_

Eliot's heart stops in his chest. "Michael. Is he okay?"

The others, hearing Eliot's side of the conversation through his com, freeze in their appointed tasks. The newest (and oldest) member of the Leverage brood has been a cause for concern among the adults - he's still grieving, but he's quiet, too quiet, and knowing who his father is, that's bound to eventually erupt in a some kind of trouble.

_"__I am calling to inform you that_ your son _was involved in an altercation with two of our other students today."_ Davis emphasizes the words "your son" as if Michael had been the one to start...oh.

"He got in a fight?" Eliot rubs his head and sighs. Five weeks in and he's already screwing up this parenting thing. "Do you know why?"

_"__No,"_ Davis says, _"but I have the parents of the two boys here, and they would like to speak with you, Mr. Spencer."_

"Mr. Davis," Eliot says with a confidence that he does not feel, "I suggest you find out why the fight started. My son is not the kind of kid who gets in fights without a very good reason."

_"__Mr. Spencer, that is not the issue here,"_ the principal says pompously, _"The problem is that_ your son- " again, that emphasis, "_put two boys in the hospital."_

Hospital? Shit. "Did he start the fight?"

_"__At this time, we don't know, but you need to come to the school to discuss your son's welfare and...options."_

This man makes his blood boil. "Those two boys, are they unconscious?"

_"__Well, no."_

"Are their jaws broken?"

_"__No."_

"Then they can talk. Get the whole story before you go accusing _my son_ of starting fights. Could be he was just defending himself against _two_ boys. You ask him and you ask those boys why the fight started. Then we can talk about _options." _He hangs up with a huff.

_"__Okay, gang,"_ Nate says over the coms, _"wrap it up. Eliot, you can go." _The job is important, but family emergencies come first.

"Thanks, man."

_"__Should I put more ice packs in the freezer for mini-Eliot?"_ asks Parker, who is at home with Ruby and the twins on "maternity leave."

Eliot sighs wearily. "Yeah, probably." He has a feeling it won't be pretty.

_"__Bandages and antiseptic, too,"_ Parker goes on. He can hear her rummaging in the first aid kit. _"Sling. Ooh, found the neck brace. Do you think he'll need stitches?"_

"_Parker, Eliot will let you know when he sees him," _Nate says.

_"Oh, okay,"_ Parker says, sounding just a tad disappointed. Just a smidge._ "But I should make sure there's ice cream, right? He's going to need ice cream when he gets home."_

"Thanks, Parker." Eliot rubs his head and _worries_ about his kid. Now he gets it,_ that _expression on his teammates' faces sometimes. He really does.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When he gets to the school, he almost runs into a little girl in the hallway in his haste to get to the principal's office. Looking down, he realizes that it's a very familiar little girl.

"Irene?" he says, and noticing the tear tracks on her reddened cheeks, immediately asks, "What's wrong, honey?"

"Nothing, not anymore," she replies mysteriously, then says, "I have to go back to class, Uncle Eliot," and waves her bathroom pass at him. "Bye!"

He is left standing with a puzzled "Wh- " on his lips as she skips merrily away. He shakes his head and continues on to the office.

"Mr. Spencer," Davis says, as soon as he walks in the door, "I really have to apologize for, _ahem,_ thinking that your son Michael was the instigator of the fight. In fact, one of our students came in a few minutes ago and reported that it was actually the other boys who were the miscreants in this particular altercation. These are the boys' fathers, Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Johansson. _Their children_, Steven and Daniel, will be apologizing to your son as soon as their two-week suspension has been completed."

Eliot's jaw drops open. He puts two and two together and vows to bake a batch of double chocolate chip cookies for Irene when he gets home. The little grifter, her mother's daughter.

He stammers out something in reply and looks around for where in the hell they've stashed his son.

"Michael is in the nurse's office," Davis says helpfully.

Upon hearing that, the anger returns. "You mean to tell me _my son_ was hurt badly enough to go to the nurse and you didn't tell me?" he growls.

Davis swallows and beads of sweat appear on his forehead. "He has a bloody nose and some bruises," he says, forgetting to use big words in his nervousness.

Eliot sets his lips in a thin line and marches out of the office.

"I can show you..." the principal starts.

"I know where it is," Eliot snarls...as civilly as he can. "Thank you, Mr. Davis. I'll be taking him home now."

He leaves the rotund principal stuttering and dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief behind him, and navigates the hallways to the nurse's office.

"I'm Michael Roberts' father," he tells the nurse, and is shown in to the inner examining room.

The sight that meets him takes him back about thirty years. Michael's nose had bled quite a bit, and the front of his shirt is a macabre Jackson Pollock painting all in red. Eliot takes one look at his son's face and knows that he'll have two black eyes and a swollen lip in the morning. The way he's sitting tells him that there are bruised ribs under the bloodied shirt, and there's a long scrape along his right forearm and elbow, as if he'd fallen onto concrete and caught himself with his arm.

He feels a flare of anger unfurl itself in his gut. These kids. He's gonna see if he can get their suspension to include forty hours of community service or something like that. Fifty hours, he corrects himself, when Michael winces getting down from the examining table, No, make it a hundred.

Michael refuses to meet his eyes all the way to the car.

As Eliot drives, he finds himself unable to think of anything to say. What is he supposed to do?

"Did you win?" he asks, and mentally hits himself a minute later.

Michael looks up, a little taken aback. "Yes," he whispers.

"That's good," Eliot nods. "If you're gonna fight, you should win." He can feel his son's eyes on him, staring. He goes on, "And even if you know you can't win, you should still fight back anyway, if it's for a good enough cause. Just don't fight for no reason at all."

"You don't mind me fighting?" Michael asks incredulously.

Eliot purses his lips. "It would be kinda hypocritical if I said I don't want you to," he says slowly, "but yeah, I'd rather you didn't. I think you should know how, but you shouldn't have to fight in school. There are other ways to get around bullies."

Michael scoffs. "Like what?"

Eliot smiles. "Ask your cousins."

Michael frowns and is silent for a minute. "Um, Dad?" he says, the word still strange on his lips, "How are they related? Is Uncle Nate your brother? And is Aunt Parker your sister?"

"That's kind of a difficult question," Eliot chuckles, "We're not related at all. We're all good friends who worked together in the beginning, and then they paired off and had kids. Ya know? I'm the odd one out. But that's okay, too, 'cause I have you now, bud."

Michael processes this information with an expression that reminds Eliot of himself.

"Make sure you say thank you to Irene when you see her after school," Eliot says, "She's the one who told the principal what happened. Incidentally," he adds, "what really did happen?"

Michael gives his father a wary look before explaining, "There were some little kids, second or third graders, I think, and those guys were bugging them. And it made me mad. That's a good reason for fighting, right?"

Eliot parks the car in the parking spot. "Yeah, son, that's a good reason. But try not to start too many fights, okay? They'll remember and then this'll happen again."

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Irene wasn't really there."

"Yeah, I know."

Michael blinks. "She lied?"

Eliot chuckles. "That's what she does. It's like you and fighting. It comes naturally to want to do it, but fighting stands out more than lying and acting do. It's harder to get away with it, at least until high school, when they'll just stick you in football and wrestling."

Michael walks beside Eliot to the elevator. "You're a weird dad."

Eliot laughs. "I'm learning, kid. Tell me if I do something wrong."

Michael shoots him a doubtful look. "No, I think you're doing okay."

"Yeah? Ya think so?"

"Yeah."

"Well, it's not hard when I've got the coolest kid in the world," Eliot says, and cups a hand around the back of his son's neck. And...he actually means it. He can do this dad thing. Yeah. He can. It'll be a bumpy ride, but he can do this. Probably. Maybe.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Parker-Hardison family lives on the top floor of the Leverage-owned apartment building, so it's fairly easy for Parker to get into Eliot's apartment on the third floor.

"Ice pack," she says, and hands Michael a cold, towel-wrapped package. "Ooh, that looks bad. Maybe you need another one," she says, wincing, and flits to the freezer to get one more.

"Uncaliot," Ruby says, and toddles over to Eliot with her arms outstretched.

"Hey, Rubes," he says, and picks her up. "How was your day today?"

"She picked a lock in nine seconds," Parker says proudly, and gives the bewildered Michael his icepack.

"You did? That's awesome," Eliot says, and bounces her. "Good work, Ruby."

Ruby takes a handful of her uncle's hair and tries to tie a knot in it. He puts her down before he gets yet another tangle in his hair.

He pulls out a bottle of Tylenol from the cabinet. "Here," he says, and gives Michael a pill, "take this. I got some ointment for those cuts, and then you're going straight to bed."

Michael takes the pill obediently and washes it down with the glass of water given to him by Parker. He turns around and starts to walk down the hallway, but pauses. He turns back around.

"What exactly do you guys do? For work, I mean," he asks.

Eliot and Parker share looks. "Uh," Eliot says, "We work at a consulting company."

"Okay," Michael nods. "And that means that you're okay with me fighting, and Irene gets to lie, and Ruby picks locks?"

Eliot bites the inside of his lip. Awkward. "Go to bed, Michael," he says sternly.

He's actually pretty surprised when the kid does as he's told (after a long, suspicious look at his dad, anyway). Huh.

"You're not going to tell him?" Parker asks.

"I don't think he's ready for that conversation just yet," Eliot replies.

"I think he seems ready," Parker says, and goes over to the custom-designed baby carrier-slash-rappelling harness. "Ready for bottles, Gil and Flo?" she asks the gurgling newborns.

Apparently, they are. Eliot feeds Guilder while Parker does the same for Florin.

"Parker," he says, and clears his throat, "When you first had Carrie, were you...scared that you were going to screw her up?"

Parker tilts her head at him. "I'm still scared. I'm scared that she's going to end up like me. Hardison always says that he wants her to, but he's just saying that to be nice. I don't want her to turn out like me. Any of my kids. But even if they do," she tacks on, "I'll still love them because they're _my_ kids. You know?"

Eliot gazes down at the suckling baby in his arms. Tiny coffee-and-cream-colored hands grip tightly onto the bottle in his hand. "Yeah. I don't want Michael to turn out like me either," he says in a low voice, "My life, it was...I don't want him to be like me."

Parker smiles sadly. "I know. But I don't think you can help that. He is just like you. The good parts of you."

Eliot huffs out a laugh. "I have good parts?"

Parker nods at Gil. "That's a good part," she says gently, "He'll fight for the right thing. He got that from you."

He raises an eyebrow at her. Michael had told him about his reason for fighting on the drive back home from school.

"Frankie wired the inside of your car for practice," Parker explains and taps her ear.

Eliot closes his eyes in frustration. "Seriously?"

"Mm-hm," she nods, "Seriously. I could tell him to take the mikes out," she offers.

Eliot pinches the bridge of his nose. "Who else heard?"

Parker shrugs. "I don't know. I guess Hardison could check."

Eliot sighs again, and seeing the baby has finished his bottle, burps Gil as expertly as only an uncle who has six nieces and nephews can. Then he starts prepping the kitchen to bake Irene's cookies.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"I don't like him," Frankie says a couple of hours later, "He's no fun, not like Uncle Eliot is. Uncle Eliot's no fun anymore either."

"Frankie," Carrie sighs dramatically, "don't you know _anything?"_

"His mom just died," Irene explains yet again, "That's why he's sad. You'd be sad too, if your mom died."

"But Mommy's not gonna die. Besides, even is she did, we'd still have Daddy. And Uncle Nate and Aunt Sophie and Uncle Eliot. That's lots of people."

"Yeah, well Michael does, too," Irene says, "but he doesn't know all of us yet. We have to be nice to him, okay?"

"So you conned the principal today?" Carrie asks, resisting the urge to punch her brother.

"Yeah. He was easy. I just started crying and saying that I wanted to do the right thing but I was scared that I would get in trouble, but those guys were hurting Michael, and I wanted to tell the truth...and he believed me. Easy," she says and holds out the plate of cookies. "Want another one?"

"Okay," the two Hardison siblings say, and take _two_ more each.

Irene sighs and rolls her eyes. Then she stands, brushes the crumbs from her outfit, and goes to ask her mother if she can go to Uncle Eliot's place.

"Today might not be a good time," Sophie tells her.

"I want to see if Michael's okay, Mummy," Irene says, "Please?"

"Oh, alright," Sophie agrees, thinking to herself that if anyone can bring the boy out of himself, it would be her daughter.

So Irene skips downstairs and knocks on her uncle's door.

"Hi," she says brightly, when the door opens, "The cookies were yummy, Uncle Eliot," and hugs him around the middle, making sure that she is _inside_ the threshold of his apartment, so that it will be harder for him to tell her to go away.

As predicted, he invites her in and she sees the top of a messy, curly head over the back of the couch.

"Hey Michael," she says. "What are you watching?"

Michael looks at her with dull eyes and hitches one shoulder up in a half-shrug. "A movie."

_Oh look, he speaks._ Irene sits down next to him and takes note of the slight wince when she bounces just a tiny bit. _Oops._

"So," she says, "What really happened at school today?"

"Got into a fight," he answers gruffly. "Thanks for getting me out of trouble."

Irene grins brightly. "You're very welcome. I hate that principal. He's so creepy." She shudders. "And he sweats ugly. I don't like guys who sweat ugly."

Michael just looks at her.

"None of the guys in our family sweat ugly," she explains, "Uncle Eliot sweats a _lot_ when he's working out, but it's not ugly sweat. It's gross, but not ugly."

"Do you always talk this much?" Michael asks, staring.

Irene closes her jaw with an audible snap. "I should go," she says, and stands, making sure to give the couch an extra big bounce.

Michael gives a pained grunt. "Sorry," he says, "didn't mean it like that. It's just...you do talk a lot. I don't mind. But...you do. Talk, I mean. A lot."

Irene puts a hand on her hip. "Well, you don't talk that much. Someone has to make up for that."

Michael smiles a little, then stops with another wince.

"That looks really bad," Irene says, "Do you want another ice pack?"

He sighs. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, sure. You're fine." She turns around and says in a loud voice, "Uncle Eliot, Michael needs another pain pill. He's making funny faces like it hurts a lot."

"I'm fine," Michael hisses.

"Sure, you are," Irene says smugly. "Just like Uncle Eliot is always fine, too."

"What is it with your family and being weird?" Michael sighs.

His father comes at that point and makes him take another Tylenol and changes his ice packs. "Why didn't you tell me you were hurtin'?" he asks Michael.

"I'm fine," Michael says again.

"Uh-huh," Irene says, "By the way, you said 'your family.' It's 'our family.' You're in it, too. And don't worry, you're _weird_ enough to fit in."

Eliot sighs and turns to the girl. "Irene." He makes a twirling motion with his finger and a shooing gesture accompanied by a whistle.

As Irene flounces away with a "Bye, Michael! bye, Uncle Eliot! Thanks for the cookies!" Michael shakes his aching head and mutters, "What is wrong with her?"

Eliot chuckles and takes his son's chin gently in his hand to examine the fat lip and bruised eyes and nose. "You feelin' any better?"

Michael blinks. "Yeah. I guess."

His father smiles. "That's what she was going for. She's manipulative, but sometimes, that's a good thing."

Michael frowns. "This family is still crazy."

Eliot sits down next to him and puts his arm around the back of the couch. "Ah, they grow on ya," he sighs, "This is a good movie," he says, nodding at the screen, which is playing an old James Dean film.

"My mom liked it," Michael confides in a low voice.

Eliot looks across at him. "Yeah? What else did she like?"

Michael tells him. He tells him everything he can remember about his mom because he doesn't want to forget her, because he wants his dad to know more about his mom than what she looked like eleven years ago, because he misses her, because...because his dad _cares_ and actually listens to him. (And if he cries a little, his dad just puts his arm around him and lets him.)

When he wakes up in the morning, he finds that the hole inside of him hurts a little less, even though his face and ribs hurt a lot more.


	19. K: The New Guy

Summary: Lindsey, the team, and Eliot and Kimi. Kimi has magical powers of adorableness that make everyone like her, even though she is very naughty and drives her papa crazy. "Kimi" verse, following "One Reason" and "Meet Uncle Lin-Lin."

Okay, this collection was supposed to be mostly about the team and have a few Eliot-centric stories in it, but seriously, what happened? I kind of like this better, lol. I'll just save those other story ideas for later, if that's okay with you guys. And um, review replies? Will get to them soon. I got a little bit behind on writing chapters ahead of my posting schedule. I love all of your reviews (164 and counting! Amazing!), and support (I know the site was acting screwy yesterday, and I am so honored that you guys _still_ came around and checked up on this story throughout the day to see if they fixed it!). Thank you so much!

This chapter? Not so great. It still needs editing, but it's already the ninth, so I have to post something. Usually, I'd mess around with it a bit more before letting it go, but oh well. *sigh* Here it is. Fresh off the press, as in I just finished writing it _right now._

* * *

**The New Guy**

Working with Lindsey is like...working with a guy who looks like the guy they've worked with for years, yet doesn't talk like him, doesn't think like him, doesn't move like him, and _isn't_ him.

It's like turning around to tell him something funny, and then remembering that he's _not Eliot._

It's suddenly realizing that Eliot had a specific distance that he stood from other people, his own distinctive personal bubble radius, because Lindsey is always either too far or too close, and never just right, never where they expect him to be standing.

It's watching Lindsey work and thinking that yeah, this is a guy who's used to talking his way out of things, a guy who uses _flash_ and _pop_ and _boom_ to distract his opponent instead of taking him down the straightforward way with a _chop-swish-bam._

But that doesn't mean that he can't fight. Because he can. It's simply _easier_ to talk.

He just isn't Eliot.

He doesn't stick around for after-job dinners and drinks, doesn't cook for them, doesn't hang out with them. He's witty, but he doesn't have the same wry sense of humor that Eliot has. He doesn't joke like Eliot did (and he did, on occasion).

They only realize how much their former hitter had relaxed around them when they see how wired his replacement is. He's not _nervous_, no, not at all, just hasn't loosened up around them as much.

They miss Eliot.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Let's go steal a blind guy."

Lindsey shakes his head at his new boss's odd mannerisms and patterns of speech, but keeps his opinions to himself. "Hey," he says instead at the conclusion of the meeting, "Are you guys free this Friday night?"

The team looks at him. Mostly because it's unusual, Lindsey saying something like that. He's not exactly _social._ He keeps to himself when they're not working. Well, Eliot wasn't really that friendly in the beginning either - none of them were, aside from Hardison and Sophie when she felt like it. It's to be expected because he's still getting used to them.

Still, the mystery and potential for yummy dark, dirty secrets are too much for them. They all do a little digging in their own way. Nate with his mind tricks, Sophie with her words and little gestures, Hardison with his computer, and Parker by sneaking into his apartment while he's asleep. Except he isn't exactly asleep and tells her to go away, with less growliness than Eliot (but he still isn't exactly Mr. Friendly about it either). Hardison finds out that Lindsey McDonald is supposed to be dead, and also that he had a scary-good case record. As for Nate and Sophie, the former lawyer blocks them at every turn with counterattacks and smooth evasions.

"Why?" they ask him now, instantly suspicious of this _volunteering_ of information.

Lindsey chuckles, well aware of their opinion of him. "You know Eliot's moved into town? He's having a house-warming party for just the team on Friday."

They had known, actually. Hardison had "seen" them fly in on Monday and told the others. Parker had taken it one step further and peeked in on Eliot and Kimi through their windows at night, just to make sure. Just a peep, and then she'd gone.

"Oh," Sophie says, "That's wonderful!"

Lindsey shrugs. "Figured we could hop on by after the job, have dinner, and run. You guys coming?"

He nods at the chorus of assent. Having delivered his brother's message, he stands up to do his assigned task: beating information out of the mark's thugs (except his method isn't exactly "beating," so much as _insinuating_ that they wouldn't survive a beating by him and that they'd better fess up before he starts getting punchy).

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For once, the job goes as planned, and on Friday, they wrap it up and tie a nice big bow around it to deliver to their client.

They take Lucille to Eliot's house in the suburbs. It's a two-story house this time, but not _too_ big. Just big enough for Kimi and Eliot.

Parker is about to pick the lock on the front door when Lindsey shoots her a look, shakes his head, and pulls out a key.

"You're no fun," Parker pouts.

"Key's faster," Lindsey replies, and demonstrates. He brushes by the thief on his way in, pretending not to notice the very offended expression on her face, but the smirk that twitches on his lips says he does.

"It's okay, mama," Hardison says sympathetically, "We all know you faster than any key."

"Honey, we're here!" Lindsey calls as he walks in.

A be-aproned Eliot appears a few seconds later, his habitual scowl set firmly on his face. "Very funny, Linds," he says. The scowl lifts by a few degrees. "Hey guys."

Lindsey gives him a shit-eating grin. "Where's Princess Kimi?"

"In her room." Eliot makes a face. "She's upset with me for moving her here."

"Upset? Why? I thought she loved the new house."

Eliot shrugs. "I guess she thought we were here on vacation or something and not permanently. She wants to go back home." He rubs his neck and winces. "I guess we could..."

Lindsey crosses his arms. "You want me to talk to her?"

Eliot snaps back from his momentary uncertainty. "No, it's fine. Actually," he says, this time rubbing his temples as if staving off a headache, "ya think you could talk her into taking her bath? 'No' is her favorite word right now. And I think I finally made it as a parent. She 'hates' me, she says."

Lindsey scoffs and shakes his head.

"Oh, surely not," Sophie says, and hands him a bottle of wine. "Congratulations on your new house, Eliot."

"Thanks, Sophie."

"It's a nice place," Nate says, looking around.

"I'm not completely finished with all the unpacking and stuff," says Eliot as he rummages in his refrigerator, "but thanks for coming, guys."

Parker and Hardison, having sneaked off earlier to look for their new favorite little person, return soon after with Kimi. They had been taken on a tour of the entire second floor, including all the closets, drawers, and windows.

"Unc-o Lin-Lin!" Kimi cries upon seeing her uncle, and flies at him.

"Hey, Kimi," Lindsey says with an easy grin and catches her up in his arms. He settles her on his hip. "Didja miss me?" he asks her.

The team looks on, a little surprised at how _open_ and relaxed Lindsey seems when he's with his family. Apparently, Kimi has the effect on everyone.

"Uh-huh," the little girl replies and plants a kiss on his cheek. "Lots and lots."

"Well I missed you, too, monkey," he replies and returns the kiss. "A lot."

Behind them, Eliot rolls his eyes and hands the adults their drinks. "You were just here two days ago."

Lindsey shrugs. "So? That's ample time to miss the best girl in the world. Right, Kimi?"

Kimi nods, making her black curls bounce, and puts her head down on his shoulder in a trusting gesture. Then she sees Sophie and Nate, and the dark eyes light up. "Sofeee, Nato, hi-ee!" she waves excitedly.

Nate gives her an awkward smile in greeting and fiddles with his drink.

"Hello, Kimi," Sophie says, "That's a very pretty dress you're wearing. Did your papa pick it out?"

"No," the little girl says, squirming a little with delight, "I pick. Unc-o Lin-Lin give me."

"Well it's very pretty," Sophie says again. "Your uncle has good taste."

"Eat dress?" Kimi queries with a puzzled look on her face. The effect is confused adorableness.

The adults laugh, making Kimi even more confused and a bit upset at being laughed at. "What? What?"

"Kimi, hun, what Sophie meant was that I'm good at picking out pretty dresses for pretty little girls," Lindsey explains, and kisses her gently on the temple. "Hm? You like those dresses I got you?"

Kimi nods. "Lots," she replies with a grin.

"Well, tell you what," her uncle says, and pulls something out of his pocket, still hidden in the palm of his hand, "I've got something else for you, but you'll only get it if you do what Papa says and take your bath."

Sophie raises her eyebrow at the blatant bribe. Lindsey winks at her.

Kimi pulls back and pouts. "Lin-Lin!" she cries indignantly with one hand on her hip.

"Well, the thing is, darlin'," the former lawyer goes on, "People here don't like it when pretty little girls don't take their baths. You want to stay here, don't you?"

Kimi shakes her head.

"No?" Lindsey exclaims incredulously, "But this place is so great! This house is _such_ a nice house, and you know, I live in Portland, too. I like living near my family. That way, I can see my favorite niece _all the time._ Don't you want to live near me?" he asks, feigning just enough hurt for it to seem sincere.

Kimi bites her lip. A tentative frown creases her little forehead.

"And you know what else? There's a carnival less than_ twenty_ minutes from here. You know what a carnival is, darlin'?" he asks.

Intrigued, Kimi shakes her head again.

"A carnival," Lindsey goes on, drawing his listeners in despite themselves, all except for Eliot, who shakes his head vehemently at his brother, "is the best place in the world. It's a place where people go to have fun. There are rides that go _whoosh!_ And music, and games where you can win all kinds of prizes, like stuffed animals - you like stuffed animals, don't you, Kimi? - and then there's _so much_ delicious food. There's popcorn, and hot dogs, and corn on the cob, and these huge pretzels, and cotton candy in all different colors. It's a really great place. But," he sighs, "I guess if you don't want to stay here, you can always ask Papa to take you back to Japan again."

All this time, the big dark eyes have been getting bigger and bigger. When her uncle tells her that she could go back, she starts shaking her head no.

"No? You do want to stay here?" Lindsey says, "But I thought you didn't like this place."

"Wanna stay," Kimi tells him. "Wanna stay, Papa," she tells her father, who nods gravely, hiding a smile.

"See, but the thing is," Lindsey says sadly, "you have to take your baths if you want to stay here. If you don't, people might think you're a stinky little girl and tell Papa to take you back."

"No," Kimi says, bottom lip quivering. She climbs down from her uncle's arms and takes his hand. "Bath, Lin-Lin."

Lindsey smirks at his brother as he is _dragged_ to the bathroom by his four-year-old niece.

Eliot shakes his head and mouths '_Thanks'_ at him.

"Man, that kinda disturbing, the way he twisted that little girl's head around," Hardison says a few minutes later, a little in awe.

"That's what he's good at," Eliot says, and continues cooking.

"Then why is he a hitter instead of a lawyer?" Parker asks, curious. She nips clever fingers out to steal a mouthful of shredded cheese.

Eliot scowls at her. "Because he doesn't want to work as a lawyer anymore. Like how by the time I met you guys, I didn't do wet work. It's a career change."

"A bit of a drastic one," Sophie comments.

"Not really, if you think about it," Nate says, "It's all about strategy, what the other guy's gonna do next."

"What happened to him?" Parker asks. "Why did he change his mind?"

Eliot looks at her. "That's not my story, hun."

"Is it another one of those 'don't ask because I'll tell you' things?"

"No," Eliot answers, "It's one of those 'don't ask because he won't tell you' things." He changes the subject, uncomfortable with almost-telling his brother's secrets. "How's he doing, anyway? Working with you guys."

"Oh, he's fine," Sophie says lightly. "Very good at the job."

"But?"

"He's a bit unpredictable, isn't he?"

"You caught that already, did you?" Eliot says, chuckling. "We used to call him 'the Mav' back in high school, for 'Maverick.' You didn't know where the hell he was gonna pop up. Well, I did, but for everyone else, 'Maverick.'"

"That wasn't you?" Hardison says, snickering.

Eliot glares at him.

"What did they call you?" Nate wants to know.

"Playboy," Lindsey says, coming down the hall with a rosy-cheeked, wet-haired Kimi. "You really shouldn't talk about people behind their backs so _loudly_. What do they teach you guys these days in thief school?"

Parker snorts at the idea of a school for thieves.

Kimi patters up to her father and tugs on his pant leg. "Papa," she says, "Clean now. Carn-bull."

Eliot looks down, then up at his smirking brother. _Gee, _thanks_, Linny._ "Maybe next week, baby," he tells his daughter.

"Papa."

"Yes, Kimi?"

"Ta-morrow?"

"Next week."

"Papa?"

"Yeah, Kimi?"

"Ta-morrow."

"Next week."

"_Ta-morrow."_ It's accompanied by a stomp of the little bare foot.

"_No, _Kimi."

"Pleees, Papa?"

"No."

"Papa?"

"_No,_ Kimi."

"Papa, Kimi hate you," the girl informs him with her arms crossed menacingly.

"Okay, hun."

"Carn-bull ta-morrow?"

"No."

Kimi then tries the magical four-year-old's _please-please-please _pout. It fails to work on her papa, but her uncle, the seasoned and hardened super-lawyer, apparently falls for it.

"I can take you tomorrow, Kimi," he says and picks the now-gleeful girl up. "Just the two of us, you and me, girlie. It's a date."

"You're too easy, Linds," Eliot grumbles.

"Whatever," his brother says, and pulls a rhinestone hair clip out of his pocket and hands it to his niece for her to examine, "You need a break. I haven't seen you this worn out in years, man."

It's true, Eliot looks hassled and worried in a way the team has never seen before. It reminds Nate of the early years of raising Sam, running around after the zooming toddler, picking up after him, sneaking errands in during naptime, and finally collapsing into bed at night. And that had been with Maggie sharing the burden. Eliot must be feeling the stress after six months of doing it alone.

"I'm fine."

"Sure you are." Lindsey turns his attention back to Kimi and puts the clip in her hair, a few inches above her temple. "What are you doing to your Papa, sweetheart? Huh? Tiring him out? Runnin' around the house and makin' him chase you? You doin' it on purpose?"

Kimi grins wide at him, showing him all of her pearly white teeth.

"You are, aren't you? Be nice to Papa, Kimsy. Don't give him a hard time."

Kimi giggles and kisses him all over his face.

"Dinner's ready," Eliot announces gruffly, and turns the stove off. They help him carry the plates and platters out to the dining room table.

They're halfway though the meal when Lindsey and Eliot begin having a silent conversation that goes something like this:

Lindsey kicks Eliot under the table and jerks his head towards the stairs.

Eliot shakes his head and continues eating.

Lindsey frowns and narrows his eyes.

Eliot huffs and shakes his head again.

Lindsey's eyebrows rise and _he_ shakes his head.

Eliot's eyebrows descend and then _he_ shakes his head, glaring. He stabs at his plate and shoves a forkful of food into his mouth.

Lindsey just _looks_ at his brother.

Eliot finishes chewing, swallows, then throws his napkin down and shoves his chair back. "Fine," he growls, picking up his plate and taking it to the kitchen counter. "I'm goin'."

Lindsey chuckles, and takes a satisfied bite of his own food. "You should know better than to get into an argument with me, bro. Just like I know not to get into an all-out brawl with you."

Hardison stares. _"What_ just happened?"

"I'm sending Eliot to bed early because he's about to fall asleep at the table," Lindsey says as if it's the most normal thing in the world, then takes a sip of his wine. "Kimi darling, seriously, what are you doin' to him? He can survive for five days straight without sleep in a war zone in the middle of the desert on one canteen of water, but little ole you is wearing him out?"

Kimi giggles up at him and snuggles back against her father when he comes around to give her a hug and a kiss from behind (with a tired glare at his brother while he does it). "Papa. Nigh'ee." She reaches up and tangles her hands in his hair, and rubs noses with him. Apparently, she has forgiven her father for the abrupt move to America and for not taking her to the carnival the next day.

"Linds, could you- " Eliot starts.

"Clean up, put the kid to bed, lock up? Sure," Lindsey says, "And I'll be here tomorrow at around nine to pick her up. That oughta give you the day to yourself, maybe punch something to get rid of all that stress."

"Thanks, man," Eliot says wearily and turns to the team, "Sorry to bail on you like this." He runs a hand through his hair. "It's been a long couple of months."

"Oh yes, of course," Sophie says, putting him at ease, "You get plenty of rest. Your brother's quite right. You do look a bit rough around the edges. Not that we wanted to _say_ anything, of course."

"Go, Eliot," Nate says, when the hitter still seems a little reluctant to leave his guests.

"Thanks for dinner, man," Hardison adds, taking another bite of his enchilada. "'S good. I miss your food."

"Iffreelleegrroo," agrees Parker with her mouth full. "Brrryyyy!"

Kimi watches her father go up the stairs with her shiny dark eyes dancing, then when he _almost_ disappears around the corner, sings out, "Papa!"

Eliot comes back to the top of the stairs. "Yeah, Kimi?"

"Papa!" she says again and giggles, little hands covering her mouth.

"Kimi," her uncle admonishes, and scrubs at her chin with a napkin, "Honey, we talked about this. Be nice to Papa and let him get his rest before you wear him down again." He shoos his drained-looking brother off to his bedroom.

"Lin-Lin?"

"Yes, Kimi?"

"Done."

"Finish your plate, Kimi," Lindsey says calmly and works on clearing his own.

"Done." The little girl sits back in her chair and swings her legs.

"No, Kimi. Eat your food."

"Lin-Lin."

"Eat your food, Kimi. Then you can have dessert."

Kimi perks up. "Yummy?"

"Yes, very," Lindsey says. "You'll like it. Now eat your food."

"'Kay." Kimi takes one bite. "Done."

"All of it."

Kimi takes another bite. "Yummy yummy desser?"

"Very yummy," Lindsey says. "Finish your dinner, honey."

"So Lindsey," Nate begins, taking this opportunity to _dig, _"Why are you doing this? Taking over a potentially fatal job that doesn't pay goes over and beyond the line of familial duty. Why are you working with us?"

Lindsey shrugs. "Parenting is the toughest job out there. What's wrong with wanting to give my brother a hand in any way I can?"

"You sound like someone who knows," Sophie says, just to see what will happen.

Lindsey goes a few shades paler, and takes a gulp of his wine. "I know that Kimi can be a real handful when she wants to be," he covers with a look at his precocious niece.

"Done."

"Two more bites."

"Lin-Lin? _Nande ojisan Kimi no koto kirai nano?"_ Kimi asks, her big brown eyes looking directly at Nate the whole time with an expression disconcertingly like her father's.

Lindsey glances from the girl to his new boss. "Kimi-chan, _sonna koto yuwanai. Sou jyanai wayo."_

_Fluent,_ Nate thinks to squash the sudden pain in his chest,_ He speaks the language better than Eliot does._

Lindsey stands and begins slicing and serving up the lemon meringue pie that Eliot had baked earlier on that day. He puts one plate close (but not too close) to Kimi's dinner plate, deliberately, _very_ deliberately.

"Kimi," he says, "You finish that, you can have this."

The little girl examines the piece of pie with bright eyes. She quickly puts the last two bites of her dinner in her mouth and proudly shows her uncle her cleared plate, cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk's.

"Good girl," Lindsey says and takes the empty dish along with the rest of the team's. The others protest halfheartedly, but Lindsey shakes his head. "Nah, it's Eliot's party, and you're the guests." He adds gruffly, as if on an afterthought, "Don't make it a habit though."

"We'll help with the dishes," Sophie says.

Lindsey raises his eyebrows. "With those nails? You mean, you'll get the others to help with the dishes, don't you?" and winks.

Sophie doesn't even pretend to be offended.

"_Onaka ippai,"_ Kimi announces and hops out of her seat, leaving her half-finished dessert on the table.

"Kimi, don't you want the rest of- " Lindsey begins, but breaks off when Kimi scampers into the other room and grins at him from the end of the couch.

"Clean-up before anything else, honey," he says instead.

"No."

"Kimi," Lindsey says again, and takes a few steps towards the little girl. When he gets _close_, she bounces off of the couch and darts several more feet away. Lindsey steps forward, and Kimi scuttles away, laughing. A tiny pink sock lands by the ex-lawyer's foot, and another follows soon after, accompanied by a giggle.

The team looks on curiously. They exchange looks that are a mixture of both amusement and comprehension.

"Is this what you've been doing to Papa?" Lindsey sighs, picking up the discarded socks and putting them in his pocket to put in the wash later, "All day, Kimi? You've been doing this all day, all week?" He tries to catch her again, but the girl patters off back into the dining room...

...where she is snatched up by Nate as she runs by him.

"Oh," Kimi says, eyes round in astonishment at her deft capture from an unexpected quarter.

Nate pulls her onto his lap in one expert movement.

"You know," he says conversationally, to distract her from running off again, "You're wrong about me not liking you."

Lindsey stops in the doorway and files "understands/speaks(?) Japanese" under his mental dossier for Nate.

Kimi blinks at the _ojisan_ in whose lap she finds herself sitting. She tilts her head and makes a note similar to the one her uncle has just made. No secrets to Papa or Unc-o Lin-Lin in Japanese while Nato is around. Maybe Russian.

"I do like you, Kimi. I like you a lot," Nate continues, "I don't want you to think that I don't like you."

Kimi shakes her head. The black curls brush against Nate's arm. _"Kirai,"_ she says again, adamant in her opinion.

"You mean you don't like me, or I don't like you?" Nate asks, "Because I do like you. But sometimes, seeing you makes me sad. Because you remind me of someone."

Around the table, eyes widen and lips tighten, but no one says a word.

"Who?" Kimi queries.

"A little boy. You remind me of him a lot." Nate tries to keep the shaking out of his voice, and thinks he might have succeeded. But something in the quick dark eyes looking so innocently into his tells him that he's not as good a grifter as he'd like to be.

"Where? Where is he?"

"He died," Nate says, throat tightening, "He wasn't that much older than you are, Kimi. That's why I'm sad when I look at you. I'm sorry if you think I don't like you. I do."

Kimi's eyes fill with tears when Nate says that, and she squirms in his lap until she has her arms tight around his neck. "Miss him?" she asks.

"A lot," Nate replies.

"Miss Mama," she tells him. "Papa here but miss Mama."

Nate strokes the dark curls from her face gently, as if it is a half-remembered gesture. "I know."

"Papa say she is watching," Kimi says, then bites her lip, "Kimi is being bad to Papa," she says guiltily. "Mama be mad."

"I don't think she'd be angry," Nate says, "but you might want to be nicer to him in the future."

Kimi leans back against him and swipes at her wet eyes with the back of her hand. _"Ojisan Kimi no koto kirai jyanai?"_

Nate holds the little girl in his arms and pretends, just for a moment, that she's a little boy instead. _"Kirai jyanai. Zen-zen kirai jyanai."_ The dark head rests reassuringly against his chest.

Kimi suddenly yawns, prompting her uncle to move forward, breaking the spell.

"Kimi, _neru jikan,"_ he says, and gently lifts her from Nate's half-reluctant arms. He shoots the older man an apologetic look with unexpectedly watery eyes.

Kimi's own eyes are heavy-lidded as she looks back at Nate. "Nigh'-ee? Nato."

"Good night, Kimi."

A chorus of good nights echoes around the table.

"Nigh'-ee, Parker. Nigh'-ee, Alec Wunnderlan. Nigh'-ee, Sofeee."

As Kimi and Lindsey disappear upstairs, the remaining guests let out breaths they hadn't realized they'd been holding.

"Lindsey wasn't kidding when he said she could be a real handful, was he?" Hardison says.

"Kids are like that," Nate says, clearing his throat. "You never really know until you...have one."

Sophie looks at him, and decides to pull the conversation away from that painful topic. She doesn't bring up her speculation that Nate isn't the only one on the team who has lost a child. "Well, handful or not, she is still absolutely adorable, even when she's being contrary."

"Especially, you mean," Parker snorts.

"I can't wait to see what happens when she grows up and discovers boys," Hardison chuckles, and takes the initiative by standing up to collect the dessert plates. "Man, Eliot's gonna have a rough fourteen years. I ain't envyin' him, I'll tell you that."

The cleaning up goes fast with four of them working together to do it. Lindsey comes downstairs, and seeing his team already at work, silently picks up a dry plate and puts it where it belongs.

When Parker turns around with a just-dried glass, he is exactly where she'd expected him to be.

"Can we call you Lin-Lin now?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because that's not my name."

"Kimi calls you that."

"Only because she can't pronounce it right."

"Hey Lin-Lin, where does this dish go?"

"_Parker! _Gimme that."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

Japanese translations (phonetic):

_Nande ojisan Kimi no koto kirai nano?_ - Why does the guy [older man, which to Kimi basically means anyone from Hardison's age up] hate/not like me [Kimi]?

_Sonna koto yuwanai. Sou jyanai wayo. _- Don't say that. That's not true.

_Onaka ippai_ - I'm full.

_Ojisan Kimi no koto kirai jyanai?_ - [You] don't hate me [Kimi]?

_Kirai jyanai. Zen-zen kirai jyanai._ - [I] don't hate you. I don't hate you at all.

_neru jikan_ - Time to sleep

AN: The foreshadowing stuff with Lindsey and losing a kid will be covered later. It's in my head, but again, I need to write it out.


	20. SLF: Boys' Day Out

Summary: The boys of the "Sticky Little Fingers" Leverage family have a day out, away from the madness of the girls. Takes place after "The Most Important Role," "Always an Uncle, Never a Dad," "The Leverage Family Business," "Son of a Gun!" "S.O.S.," and "Rebel with a Cause."

The title is obviously a reference to the episode.

* * *

**Boys' Day Out **

Irene is having a tea party, and Irene's tea parties are very much A Big Deal.

All of her friends are invited, all of her family is roped in to participate, and Uncle Eliot provides the refreshments.

That is the only consolation, the food. English-style biscuits and cakes and wee little sandwiches...It's a literal feast.

"Mr. Roberts," Irene says in a "posh" British accent, "How would you like your tea?"

Michael smiles stiffly and shoots a glance at the only other boy at the table, Frankie, who grins and holds out his own tiny china teacup. "Reney, I want lotsa sugar in mine," he says.

"Frankie," Irene hisses in her own accent, "It's not your turn. It's Michael's. Mr. Roberts?" she says again and holds the rose-patterned teapot poised to pour his tea. Her hair is perfectly curled and the dress she is wearing is "quite lovely."

"Cream and sugar, please," he sighs and nudges his cup over. The eight other girls at the table giggle and titter. Carrie and Ruby exchange gleeful looks and laugh at him with identical dark chocolate eyes. He scowls at them. Just because.

"Would you like a biscuit, Mr. Roberts?" Irene asks, putting as much ceremony into the act of pouring the stupid tea as she can.

"Yes, please," he replies through gritted teeth. His tie is choking him and the gel in his hair itches.

"Mr. Roberts," Irene says again, "May I call you Michael?"

"Sure," he replies. It's not like she hasn't been calling him by his first name since he met her anyway. He finds this version of Irene very strange. Well, Irene is strange to begin with, but this? This is weird.

"_Dear_ Michael," she says with a flutter of her eyelashes, and Michael throws a desperate _God help me now_ look at his dad, who is sitting with the adults at another table.

Eliot chuckles at the distressed look his son gives him over his tiny cup of milk tea. Poor kid. It's friggin' hilarious. Irene in her element is terrifying.

"You think I should go rescue him?" he asks the guys.

"Nah," Nate laughs, "Let him sweat it out."

"You just saying that because she's your kid," Hardison says, "Frankie doesn't seem to mind so much though," he comments.

Behind them, the table erupts in half-laughter, half-outrage (mostly from the tiny curly-haired boy). "But I don't wanna, Irene! That's _girl_ stuff."

"You were saying?" Eliot says to Hardison and stands up to rescue the boys from Irene's pink-fingernailed clutches. He gives each boy a pat on his back and jerks his head. _Come on. _"Irene, I need these guys' help with something. Thank Irene for the tea," he tells the relieved boys, "and we'll get going."

"What do you need help with, Dad?" Michael asks as soon as they're out of hearing range.

"I thought we might go over to the park and shoot some hoops," Eliot says. "Wanna go?"

"Yeah," Michael says, smiling shyly, "Yeah, I wanna go." That had been one of the things he'd always wanted...before. A dad to play basketball with, who would take him to games and who'd watch action movies with him.

Eliot claps one hand on his son's back and puts the other on top of his nephew's head. "Come on, then."

They stop to change into more comfortable clothes and pick up the basketball and three bottles of water, then walk the two blocks to the small neighborhood park.

"Pass the ball, Michael!" squeals little Frankie, jumping up and down in excitement. "Pass the ball! Pass the ball! Pass the ball! Over here! I want the ball!"

Michael tosses the ball to the boy, lightly, so it won't hurt him if it accidentally hits him in the face. As the sole member of the opposing team, Eliot feigns running hard to catch up with the ball and pretends to try to catch it in mid-air (which for him, is right about mid-torso).

"I got it! I got it!" Frankie screams shrilly. "I got it!"

"That's great!" Michael shouts encouragingly, "Shoot it, Frankie. Come on, throw it!" He claps his hands to cheer him on. "Come on, Frankie!"

Eliot pretends to block the six-year-old, who bends forward with the ball, looks up, up, _up_ at the high net, and wiggles his little behind in preparation for the throw.

_Thud. Bounce-bounce-bounce_ goes the ball, nowhere even close to the hoop.

Frankie's bottom lip trembles.

"Aww, good try," Michael says, picking up the rolling ball. "That was good. Come 'ere. I'll show you how you do it." He looks at his dad, calling a silent time-out on the game.

Eliot nods and goes to sit on the sidelines, where Nate and Hardison have come to see how the game is going.

"He's good," Nate remarks.

Eliot takes a swig of his water. "Yeah," he says proudly, "He is, isn't he?"

"Yeah, well he's your kid," Hardison says, "I don't know what happened with this one over here. Seein' who his momma is, he should be all coordinated and shit."

"But it's faster if I just climb the pole," Frankie pouts on the court. "That way I can drop it in 'stead o' throwin' it."

"You were saying?" The fathers share a laugh.

"Frankie," Michael says patiently, "That's not the point. Just hold the ball like this. Stand right here. And use your whole arm. Use your wrist. Flick it." He goes around the younger boy and stands behind him.

Frankie wriggles when Michael puts his hands under his arms. "That tickles."

Michael ignores him and gets a firm grip on the boy. "Jump and throw the ball, Frankie. On three."

Frankie's face screws up in concentration.

"One. Two. _Three!"_ With that, Michael picks Frankie up as far as he can hold him, and with the combined lift of the younger boy's jump and improved throw, the ball sails high into the air...

...and bounces off of the headboard.

It misses the hoop, but it comes very, _very_ close to going in.

There's a loud cheering from the sidelines.

"Yeah!" Hardison shouts, "That was great! Did you see that?" he says to the other dads, "That's my boy right there. Mm-hm, that's my boy!"

Frankie runs over to his dad and gets tossed into the air himself. "It's almost went in, Daddy!" he yells in excitement, "It was _that_ close! It almost went in! Uncle Eliot, Uncle Nate! It almost went in! Didja see?"

"Yeah, lil' man, I saw it, I saw it! Good job. Michael's a great teacher, huh?" Hardison says, grinning at his new nephew.

Michael flushes and rubs his neck. Eliot goes over to him and claps his shoulder. "You did good, too," he says.

"Uncle Alec's right," Nate adds, "You are a good teacher."

The kid blushes even further and leans into his father, just a little. "Thanks," he mumbles. A tiny curly-haired bundle of energy barrels into him. "Oof."

"You are so cool, Mikey!" Frankie shouts at him, "You're almost as cool as Uncle Eliot!"

"Yeah?" Michael says, laughing a little at the "almost" and his new nickname. He ruffles Frankie's hair. "You're pretty cool, too, Frankie."

Eliot checks his watch. "Ya think all the estrogen's cleared out?"

Nate sighs. "Nope. I don't think it's safe just yet."

Eliot smirks. "Wanna play a game? I got the kids on my team," he says, and claims the boys.

"Oh, oh, you wanna play against Nate and me?" Hardison says, "We gon' beat your short assses," he says, pumping up. "Uh-huh. Right, Nate?" He holds out his hand for Nate to slap. "Yeah."

Neither team wins, but everyone has a lot of fun.

Once they get home, however, dripping with dirt and sweat and with grins on their faces, they are confronted with five identical expressions of disappointment and disgust at their sweaty countenances.

"Boys," Irene huffs to her cousin, "They are so _gross."_

"Gross," Carrie repeats with a delicate wrinkle of her nose.

"'Tinky," says Ruby. "Ick."

"If you go into an air vent like that," Parker scolds, a baby in each arm, "they'll smell you coming a mile away."

"Showers _immediately,"_ Sophie agrees.

The boys look at each other and shift uncomfortably.

"Well," Eliot says, "I guess these two smelly boys better be off," prompting grumbles of "traitors" from the other three males.

As they leave (escape), they can hear the sounds of feminine scolding behind them.

Father and son exchange glances and burst into furtive laughter.

Michael gets the first shower while Eliot wipes down with a face towel and gets dinner prepped. As he chops, the methodical rhythm of the action calming him, he reflects that this is the first time Michael has genuinely smiled and laughed and full-out _played_ since his mother passed away. He gives himself a mental pat on the back for his _awesome_ parenting skills.

Seriously, though, all kidding aside, he hopes that maybe Michael is getting more accustomed to being around him, that maybe his overwhelming grief is letting up, just a little, enough for the boy to allow his family in, to let them love them, and maybe love them (him) back.

"Dad," Michael says, coming in and rubbing at his hair with his towel, "Shower's free."

"Okay," Eliot says, feeling that flash of _pridelovehappinessfear_ at being called "Dad," and puts the knife down, "Thanks."

Michael shuffles close to the counter. "I can finish cutting those up," he offers timidly. "I can cook. A little."

A look at the shuttered expression in the boy's eyes reminds Eliot that Michael must have taken over the cooking and other household tasks during his mother's last illness.

"Stay away from the stove, kiddo," Eliot says, pretending he doesn't see, "and don't cut your fingers."

Michael throws him an indignant look. "I'm not that little," he says. "I can chop celery without cutting my fingers."

"Alight," Eliot says, holding up his hand in defense, "show me what you got. I'll be right back."

Michael washes his hands and gets to work. Eliot watches from the shadows in the hallway for a minute to make sure Michael is as efficient at using a knife as he'd claimed. Satisfied, he turns to take his much-needed shower.

Sensing that his father's eyes are no longer on him, Michael pauses in his task. Today had been fun. Aside from Irene's awful tea party in the beginning, he had had a good day. He hadn't really thought about his mother the entire time, up until he'd offered to help his dad cook. Then, he'd remembered. But until that point, he hadn't. He doesn't know how he feels about that - confused, guilty maybe, but being happy, playing with Frankie and their dads and Uncle Nate, that had been...fun.

He starts chopping again, and thinks.

His dad. He's pretty cool, like Frankie said. And the little kid, his _cousin,_ had also said that Michael was cool, too. Well, _almost_ as cool as his dad. That had been pretty neat. Being compared to him. He decided that he likes that, that his dad's a cool guy, and being like him wouldn't be totally awful. It would be...pretty awesome.

When his dad finishes his shower, he stands by the door again and just _watches._ Michael cuts up the last of the vegetables and asks, "What should I do next?" without looking up.

When he does look at his dad, he sees surprise on the older man's face that he covers by coming over and pulling the big wok out.

"Stir-fry and rice?"

"Sounds good," Michael replies, relieved yet again that his dad _knows how to cook._ Michael had grown up in a house where good food had been appreciated, so he had been thankful (in a detached sort of way at first) to find that his dad also held food in high regard.

"Put the rice in the cooker," Dad says, "You know how to measure it out and wash it?"

"Yeah."

"Good." Dad smiles at him and ruffles his hair. It feels nice, being praised by...his dad. "That's good."


	21. K: I'll Lend For You

Summary: Two fics in one about Nate and Lindsey and loss. "Kimi" verse, following "One Reason," "Meet Uncle Lin-Lin," and "The New Guy."

The title is from the Edgar A. Guest poem of the same name about losing a child.

Again, keep in mind that this Lindsey is the Lindsey from _Angel_ _**and**_ Jack from _Close to Home_, with an AU twist. Why did I do this? Because I'm crazy. Moving on...

**Sheherzade,** sorry to hear that you don't like this verse as much. I'll write more of the "Sticky Little Fingers" verse soon. I have something in mind.

* * *

**I'll Lend For You **

Kimi tears the garishly-wrapped present open and squeals at what she finds inside.

"A truck?" Sophie exclaims, with a delicate eyebrow raised disapprovingly. Her Christmas gift to Kimi had been a little girl's dream: a full dress-up kit, complete with real bejeweled tiaras and tiny high heels and _make-up._

"What?" Eliot says, grinning over his daughter's curly head, "Girls like trucks." Kimi nuzzles his face and kisses him on the nose. "See? She likes trucks."

The guys on the team chuckle and think of all the times girls liked them for their vehicles. Parker, though, has other things on her mind. She's looking not at Kimi and Eliot, but at the team's new hitter.

Lindsey's face had twisted when Kimi revealed her present. He stands up now, and, as unobtrusively as he can, leaves the room.

She finds him leaning over the sink in the kitchen, his shoulders shaking and his hands gripping the sides so hard that she thinks the tiles might crack. She glances in the basin and sees regurgitated food at the bottom. _Ew._

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

He hasn't been fine for a while. Ever since the holiday season had started, he and Nate have both been looking queasy and uncomfortable, and today is no exception.

"You already know that, then don't ask," Lindsey snaps. He turns the faucet on and runs water over the vomit, washing the evidence down the sink. He leans forward and rinses his mouth out, too, and splashes water on his face.

"It's what normal people say when something's wrong," Parker frowns because yet again, she's not doing it right.

Lindsey sighs and rips a paper towel off of the roll to wipe his face. "Do me a favor and leave me alone."

"But it's Christmas."

He throws her an Eliot-glare. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You shouldn't be sad on Christmas." She means it. No one should be sad on the most magical day of the year.

"Parker." Lindsey clenches his eyes closed and breathes deeply. "Go away."

Parker bites her lips and prods. "You look the way Nate used to on Christmas. Is it for the same reason?"

Lindsey concentrates on breathing, just breathing. "Yes."

She clenches her hands and feels how inadequate she is for this, how _useless. _Sophie would be better at this, but she has a feeling Lindsey would get really mad if she brought Sophie over. "I'm sorry."

"Parker. Go. _Please."_

It's the "please" that does it. She stands there for a moment longer, then vanishes back into the bright, happy room with the others.

When Lindsey rejoins them several minutes later, he bears no trace of his grief, his secret. He smiles like he's supposed to when Kimi lugs his present - an oversized teddy bear almost bigger than she is - over to him and uses both it and him as pillows while they watch _Mulan_.

She does see, however, the way he holds the little girl close, and how he closes his eyes when she leans and snuggles against him. She sees the corners of Eliot's mouth tighten and how he pats Lindsey on the shoulder as he passes by him on the way to the trash can with a handful of ripped wrapping paper.

She catches Sophie's eyes following Eliot too, and they meet hers as they both look back at their new hitter sitting with his niece. The grifter's eyes soften. _Good work,_ they say, but also warn her not to go any further. It's a precipitous balancing act, dealing with the grieving. Take one too many steps over and they'll fall into an abyss of anguish, take too few and they'll think no one cares.

"Mushu is like Alec Wunnerlan," Kimi announces, making everyone look at the red and gold dragon on the screen and laugh when they get it. All except for Hardison, who pretends to be offended.

"Really?" he says acting hurt, "Really? You think I'm like a little lizard? I don't do that tongue thing," he says, just as the character says it.

Kimi claps her hands and giggles gleefully. "Again, again!" she commands, and burrows back into her uncle's warm embrace.

Hardison obliges, this time with "the tongue thing."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Nate slams his glass down on the scarred countertop and pours himself another one.

God, he hates this day. He hates today and he hates birthdays and he hates Christmas and Father's Day and Mother's Day. He hates back-to-school sales and Halloween and Easter. He hates remembering, but he's afraid of forgetting. He's afraid that one day he'll forget that today is the day his son died.

Someone sits down on the stool next to him. He risks a sideways glance.

Lindsey.

"You here to tell me to quit drinking?" Nate asks, taking another sip. "Your brother already tried. Didn't work."

"I'm not your babysitter," Lindsey says, and gets a glass for himself from the other side of the counter. He takes Nate's bottle and pours the amber liquid into his glass. He throws the entire contents back in one go.

"Today's tough, huh?" the hitter comments, "There are good days and bad days, but anniversaries and holidays are especially hard."

"Don't pretend you know," Nate snarls, suddenly feeling hot, burning _anger_ unfurl itself in his gut, "You don't know. You have no idea what it's like."

Lindsey looks at him then, and Nate sees...a kindred spirit.

"I don't know? I don't know what it's like to hold my child in my arms and know she'll never breathe again? Her heart's stopped and her little body's getting cold, but I can't warm her up? I don't know how that feels? Well, newsflash, Ford," he says, and stands, "I do." He shakes his head. "I don't know why I came down here today, but I guess I thought I could- " he scoffs, "help."

"You had a daughter?" Nate stares.

Lindsey pours more whiskey into his glass. His hand trembles, just a little. "She'd just had her first birthday. She was a year and one week old when she died. My wife," he shakes his head and bites his lip, "she didn't make it either." He rubs the spot on his left ring finger where his wedding band used to be.

"I'm sorry."

Lindsey looks at him. "Does that help?" he asks flatly, "When someone says that to you? Because it doesn't do shit for me. My baby's still gone, my wife is still gone, and I'm. Still. Here."

Nate doesn't answer. He can't. He'd been prepared to wallow in his grief today, and, in a masochistic way, had even planned it, but he hadn't thought that anyone would actually try to _talk_ about it like this, hadn't thought that any of his friends would _know._

"That's why you took the job," he says instead. "That's why it's important for you that Eliot has his time with Kimi."

"I owe him that much," Lindsey says, sitting again with a sigh. "He was there for me when I needed him the most. Right after. I was lucky. A brother's love can pull you outta the deepest depths of hell, no matter if he has to drag you out, kicking and screaming that you deserve this, that it's penance. He'll put up with any kind of shit you can throw at him just because he- because he loves you. That's...that's really something, being able to _know_ that for certain. So. I owe him. For more than just my life. I owe him for being able to live again, to be able to live with _myself_ again."

"Family will put up with a lot of crap," Nate agrees warily, not knowing why Lindsey is suddenly Mr. Share-'n-Care.

"You mean the team?" Lindsey asks, "Yeah, I'll say. Looking at the team dynamics from the point of view of the new guy, and from what Eliot told me about you guys before, yeah. You'll put up with a helluvalot for each others' sakes. That's- " he chuckles darkly, "that's family."

That hadn't been what Nate had meant, not really, but upon reflection, he realizes that, yes, Lindsey has it right on the mark. He looks sideways at his new hitter again, and thinks once more that this man is quite capable of masterminding his own team (and then some) should he ever want to.

Lindsey looks down and taps the bottom edge of his glass against the table several times. _Clink-clink-clink_. "The others will be down at Eliot's tonight. Kimi wants to put on a private ballet recital for everyone." He tosses off the rest of the whiskey.

With that, he stands up and picks his coat up off of the table. "They didn't want to ask you because of what day it is. But if you feel up to it, you know you're always welcome."

As the hitter walks out the door into the flurry of snowflakes, Nate reviews the entire conversation. As he does so, he blinks and comes to the conclusion that the man had orchestrated the entire discussion, from the revelation to winding it up with Nate realizing that he should really be with his team - his family - today.

He shakes his head. Once again, the thought crosses his mind that Lindsey is very different from Eliot. Eliot, for all his mystery and secrets, is straightforward, and could never be called "manipulative," but Lindsey? Lindsey is a different story. Lindsey meanders and curves, but in the end, he has a good heart and good intentions, no matter what he'd done in the past. In that aspect, he is like his brother, very like him.

Nate looks down at the glass in his hand and goes around the bar to wash it out and put it and the bottle away. He thinks, as he puts a pot of coffee on, he might as well go see Kimi dance. It'll take his mind off of Sam and Christmas, Sam and softball games, Sam and SpongeBob, Sam and the heart monitor flat-lining. The team will keep him from thinking too much. He thinks, maybe it's time, time he let his son rest.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

AN: Chapter 21 was supposed to be about Down Syndrome (results from extra genes on chromosome 21), but I decided the story I wrote didn't have as much of an impact as this one does. I could post it separately later on if you still want to see it. It features more additions to Eliot's imaginary extended family *rolls eyes* from the "Spirit Boy" verse (speaking of which, I need to change that verse title because I already have an unrelated story by that name...How about "Two Wolves," like **Ultrawoman **suggested? Yes? No? Should I leave it as it is? Give me your opinions, guys).

Edit 9/13: I changed the verse name to "Two Wolves."


	22. TW: In a Ball of Red

Summary: Eliot inherited his father's temper. "Two Wolves" verse (changed verse title!), after "Lookin' At Me With Those Big Blue Eyes," "Brother From Another Mother," "From the Letter That I Got Last Fall," and "Two Wolves."

As you can see, I changed the title (thank you for your opinions on this, guys), and I will be going back to the other chapters with my magical "find and replace" feature and fix those...later. Post today's, then bed now.

Tomorrow (the 13th) is my birthday! Thank goodness. I thought it would never come and I'd have to keep writing one of these a day for another year! I kid, I kid. I love doing this. That's why I keep it up every year. Most of that is thanks to my readers (that's you!) who give me the little extra oomph I need to crank these out. This story has officially beat my review record (190 for one story), even though it has about two-and-a-half times fewer hits than that one. You guys seriously rock. Thank you! (Review replies will have to wait until tomorrow. *guilty* I seem to have fallen behind again on my writing, and that has top priority, at least until tomorrow. I just finished typing this chapter out...now. Thanks!)

Story title, again, is from Christian Kane's song "Spirit Boy."

* * *

**In a Ball of Red**

Billy doesn't meditate or count rocks or whatever the hell kinda shit all those yuppie people do to relax. When he gets mad, he takes a breath, closes his eyes, loosens his muscles, thinks about _not_ being angry, and lets the breath out. He does that a few times and it usually works. If it doesn't, he'll do it again until it does.

He makes a hell of a lot of effort to keep from getting angry. Getting angry always gets him into trouble.

Take that time when he was seventeen. There was a girl (ain't there always?) and he loved her and she loved him and it oughta've been simple just like that. But it wasn't. Her rich daddy didn't like an Indian boy making eyes at his blue-eyed blonde-haired only daughter, and Billy, he didn't like being called a half-bred whelp fresh off the reservation. So he took his daddy's gun and went to go get his girl, and damn anyone who got in his way. He got her, but then he lost her, along with fifteen years of his life and the chance to be a father to his son.

Looking back, he'd ridden in on the back end of the stupid train that time. But he'd learned, boy, did he learn. Getting pissed off and staying out of trouble don't much go hand in hand. When William Two Wolves, Jr. gets angry, the whole world better watch out.

Nowadays, it takes a lot for Billy to get even the least bit irate. Sure, he gets annoyed when there's a bunch of people at the store and there's only one register open and the lady up front is counting exact change out in pennies, or when some guy keeps talking on his phone during a movie, but it's nothing to get real mad about. Billy these days is a pretty cool-headed kind of guy.

Except when things really get to him. Then, well, then, you'd better get outta his way because he'll mow you down on the way to whatever it was that set him off.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

They're nice people, his son's friends. A mite crazy, maybe, but decent people.

That Nate guy, once you get him talking, you can see he's a real smart kinda man, the kind of guy who's had a lot of schooling and made use of every minute of it. He's the kind of guy who's always watching, always learning, always thinking. He's someone to watch out for, if you got bad intentions. Lucky for Billy, the only things on his mind are making good with the law and getting to know his son.

The Hardison boy, he really is a boy. Watching Eliot with him brings back memories of his own childhood, messing around with his much-older half-brother during visits to his mama's other family. These two, they may not have come from the same place, but they're brothers. "Foster brother," the kid claims, just to annoy Eliot, and Eliot obliges by feigning exasperation.

That Parker girl, she's really something. Stickier fingers than Houdini himself. First his wallet, then his keys and on one occasion, he'd found himself without his belt when he went to go use the men's room. How that team of hers puts up with it day in and day out is beyond him.

The Sophie woman. She's crazy. She'd wanted to buy his paintings - imagine that - and she was serious about it, too, even after he'd given them to her. She tells him that while there are many self-taught artists, very few of them have Potential. The way she says it, that word has a capital letter at the beginning of it. He tells her flat out that - pardon his language - she's out of her damn mind. The look on her face when he says that, well, she's only _acting_ offended so it don't bother him much. Really, she's laughing as much as the rest of her team. Hopefully.

This team of Eliot's, they're good people.

They come to see him every couple of weeks or so. They don't come all at once most of the time (it's generally Eliot and the younger two who come just to see how he's doing - and boy, isn't that a nice change, having a family after so long on his own), but all of them end up dropping in by the time The Incident happens.

They're at the bar a few minutes' walk from Billy's apartment. It's a nice little place, got a bartender who's not too inquiring, booze that keeps coming so long as you got the cash, and it ain't too crowded - it's mostly regulars. It's nice.

So they're sitting there, and all of a sudden, Eliot, who's sitting next to Billy, tenses up. Billy and Eliot, neither of them like sitting with their backs hanging out in the wide open, so Billy looks up and sees what his son's seeing.

Two guys, big burly men who don't stand like they belong (enforcers - he knows the type, having met quite a few of them in the clink) and who are most definitely carrying, walk in. They look around, their gazes lingering on their group in the corner, and one of them talks. It's nothing much out of the ordinary, only Billy can tell that he isn't talking to the other guy. No, he's got the look of someone who's talking on a radio or a walkie-talkie and getting orders back. He can't see anything in the guy's ear, but a while back, that Hardison kid had shown Billy some tiny little bit of plastic that fits right in his ear that you can use to talk to others who have the same kind of earpiece. Technology these days.

The two guys, they walk in and take a seat in a booth where they can keep an eye on Billy and the others. That's mighty suspicious. Then three other guys, same type as the first two, come in and sit in another booth. Three more guys after that, and by this time, everyone at Billy's table has noticed. Parker especially, looks a bit twitchy. Billy gets the feeling that a twitchy Parker isn't good news.

Hardison taps on his phone doohickey and says in a low voice, "Got their coms," and suddenly, all five of them get that same expression that looks like they're listening in on something only they can hear, except those other eight guys in the bar are hearing it, too.

"Uh-oh," Parker says.

"That's not good," Hardison agrees, looking worried and tapping a bit more. "How'd they follow us here?"

"Nate?" Eliot says quietly, suddenly all professionalism and none of Billy's little boy hanging about him, and gets a silent nod in reply.

Eliot stands up _(dangerous,_ says Billy's mind, and he's not entirely sure if he means for Eliot or about him), and, making sure to make eye contact with each one of those eight guys pretending not to be watching them, walks right out the door. There's another few seconds of radio communication, and four of the eight follow him out. Part of Billy is relieved that Eliot's taking the fight outside, so no one inside the bar will get hurt, but the father in him worries that Jesus Christ there's no way his son can fight all four of those highly-trained guys (and they are, even a blind man could see that) all on his own.

He turns to the team and says as much. "Should we call someone?"

Parker snorts. "You're adorable," she says, and pats his hand.

"Wait," Nate says to Billy.

About a minute passes (though it feels longer than those fifteen years in prison), and the other four guys walk outside. Billy sees the hand of one of them slide into a jacket pocket, and he gets a bad feeling.

Billy stands too, about to follow them out, to try to warn his son, try to...something.

Sophie grabs onto his hand. "He's fine," she says. "This is what he does."

"Billy, just wait," Nate says, "He'll be back soon."

Billy looks around the table at the concerned faces (worried not for his son, but for him) and shakes his head. "Got a bad feeling," he says, and goes outside. They don't stop him; they come along instead.

Just in time, it seems, because the first thing Billy sees when he gets outside is two guys grabbing Eliot by both arms and him struggling with slow, groggy movements like...

Billy tears his gaze away and sees a syringe - the object that the guy had pulled out of his pocket - discarded on the ground next to the bodies of the six unconscious men Eliot had managed to take down.

Drugged. These bastards drugged his son, and damn trying to keep cool because _they drugged his son._

He sees a gun - a Beretta M9 - on the ground near the syringe, and he finds himself moving towards it in a haze of red.

"Don't move!" one of the guys holding _his son_ shouts when he notices him, but he's already there, already has the gun in his hand, and he shoots.

The man goes down (Sophie cries out and one of the men, Hardison or Nate, shouts). While the other guy is dealing with the sudden loss of support from the other side of the dead weight of Eliot's body, Billy charges forward and tackles him with a bellow of pure rage.

He rolls the man out from under his son and he hits him, and he hits him, and keeps going until the insistent sounds uttered by the voices around him turn back into words, his name.

"_Billy, Billy, stop. Stop!"_

Stop.

The red in his vision leaches away, and he's left sitting there on top of the man, his hands dripping crimson - his blood or the other guy's? - panting, exhausted, shaking. He stares at the blood on his hands - oh god, not again - and looks down at the barely-recognizable mess under him. He turns to see...

Eliot's still flat on his back, but his head is resting in the blonde's lap. Although he isn't moving, his chest rises and falls. _Alive, alive,_ says each breath he takes. Alive.

The man beyond him is lying curled up onto one side. He's not moving either.

Shot. Billy shot him. Shot him. Shot...

He's being hauled up, one arm around someone's shoulder, and they're walking, and they're talking to him, but the words wash right over him, and then he's in a car (Why a car? It's not that far to walk), and then he's back home again, sitting on the couch, having Sophie wipe his hands down with a wet towel.

He can pretend that it's paint, wet, red dripping, metallic-smelling paint, but he knows that it's not, knows what he did, what his hands did, because god, he let that rage take over again after all these years, after he'd sworn to himself, never again.

"Eliot?" he whispers when he can find his voice. "Eliot."

The soft hands rubbing his pause in their work, and then squeeze. "He's alright," Sophie says, "It was only sedatives. He'll wake up in a couple of hours." She squeezes again. "We're lucky you decided to go outside just then. They might have taken him god knows where if we hadn't gotten there in time."

"Shot," he rasps, and curls his hot, throbbing fingers, "Hands." The words don't come, not in sentences like they're supposed to - words have never been his strong point - but she understands what he means anyway.

"Hardison's monitoring their status," she says softly, and her eyes flicker to the kitchen table where the hacker and Parker are sitting. "They weren't too badly hurt. You got that one in the shoulder."

"Not dead?"

"No," Nate answers, and comes into the room from the bedroom. He stands over him, and _looks._ "Not dead."

Relief washing over him, Billy closes his eyes and thanks God or whoever is out there watching. He doesn't need another death (or more) on his conscience, not on top of the other one. Doesn't need to go back to jail. Not again. He'll probably get a couple of years for assault, but that can't be helped.

"My son," he croaks, and swallows, "That was all I could think. They had my son, my boy, and they were hurting him. I- " He stops, shakes his head, sighs. "That's no excuse, I suppose. No excuse for losing my head."

When he opens his eyes, he sees sympathy etched on Sophie's face and on the faces of the two in the kitchen. Something flickers across Nate's as he nods.

"No one saw," the man says, "The people at the bar, they like you. And when we told them that they were people who'd had it out for you and your family, well, they won't talk."

Billy stares.

The other man smirks, just a little. "Sophie can be very persuasive," he explains simply.

"Except when it comes to you, Billy," she huffs in an attempt to lighten the mood. "I keep trying to tell you that your art is much better than you think it is, but you don't seem to hear me."

Billy examines his hands, which are still tinted red-orange (cadmium red, his mind provides) in some spots.

Sophie and Nate exchange looks. "Billy," she says gently, "Let me wrap up your hands and you can sit next to Eliot. You'll be the first thing he sees when he wakes up. How about that?"

He'll see his hands and he'll _know._ That's all Billy can think as he sits on his couch and stares at his bruised and cut-open rust-colored hands.

Sophie wipes his hands again with another towel to get the remaining blood off of them and dabs antiseptic on the cuts. Billy wonders where the white cotton bandages came from, until he sees the bag stocked full of medical supplies on the floor. Eliot must get hurt a lot. That's not much of a comfort, but something settles at the pit of his stomach when he sees the efficient way the brunette handles his injuries. His son is well taken care of, that much is certain.

He resists the urge to run his hands through his hair when Sophie finally releases them from her hold. They throb and burn, but Billy endures it as atonement for losing his temper and as a reminder not to do it again.

"You fight like something's trying to get out of you," Sophie says softly, interrupting his thoughts.

He looks up, finally. "What?"

"Something someone said to Eliot once," she explains. "He told me that it's about control. Control in here." She taps Billy's chest. "You learned that the hard way. So did he. He's not going to condemn you for doing the same thing he has done in the past."

Billy presses his lips together and stands. He turns at the door. "What was the name of that art dealer again?" he asks. _Thank you._

Sophie beams. "Here, I'll give you his card," she says, and digs around in her purse.

She ends up giving him the business card of an art dealer _and_ one from a framer's ("They'll give you a good deal - Just mention my name, Regina." "Excuse me?" "That's the name I use with them." "O-kay."), both local. He gives her a suspicious look, but she blinks back at him with an angelically innocent expression. Liar. But he likes her, so that's alright.

"Thanks," he says, and tucks the cards safely away in his pocket.

Eliot is laying flat on his back on top of Billy's bed. He stares at the inert figure for a while, then moves forward and unties the laces on his boots, tugs them off and sets them on the floor next to the bed. He goes to his closet and pulls a blanket out, which he drapes over his son, clumsily with his bandaged hands, but he manages it. Then he drags the wooden chair that he'd bought secondhand over to the bed and sits.

It's amazing how young Eliot looks asleep, with his hair smoothed back and the tension gone from the muscles in his face. It gives Billy a jolt to realize that Eliot is over a decade older than Rosie had been when she'd died. He finds himself wondering what she would have looked like now, had she lived. Still beautiful, obviously, but what would she be like, how would she have changed? God knows he has.

Eliot frowns, and his fingers twitch. Pretty soon, the tension perpetually running through his body is back, hidden underneath a deceptively relaxed surface.

He senses him, Billy thinks, and clears his throat. "I know you're awake," he says softly, "The others are in the other room. I can go get them if you want."

Blue eyes _(Rosie's eyes)_ open, and they look at him, more alert than they have any right to be after being drugged like that. "They okay?" Eliot rasps.

Billy nods. "They're fine."

Eliot's eyes flicker down to Billy's hands, sees the bandages, the damage. He frowns. "Wh' happened?" he slurs.

Billy doesn't answer for a moment. "Lost my temper," he says, guilt rising again.

Perceptive blue eyes narrow. "Bad?"

"Bad enough," Billy answers. "They say they'll live," he says and grimaces.

Eliot takes a breath and starts to heave himself, first up onto his elbows, then all the way to a sitting position. He's about to swing his legs over, but is stopped by a bandaged hand on his knee.

"You're staying here tonight, kid," Billy says, "Take the bed."

Eliot starts to protest, but Billy gives him a look. "You owe me that much for scarin' me like that. Go back to sleep."

This time, it's Eliot's turn to look guilty. "It's my job to take the hits," he starts, settling back on the bed. "Sorry."

Billy sighs. He wants to say something, but again, the words fail him. He settles for a pat on the muscled chest and stands up to go.

"Dad?" It's a whisper, but he hears it anyway. Eliot's groggy enough that he could mean either Billy or...or the man he called "Dad" all his life, Billy's brother.

"Stay."

So Billy sits back down and watches his son sleep.


	23. SLF: Lunchtime

Summary: Leverage Consulting & Associates, Jr., continued. The take-down of another bully and a serious discussion about personal hygiene and unicorns. "Sticky Little Fingers" verse. Takes place after "The Most Important Role," "Always an Uncle, Never a Dad," "The Leverage Family Business," "Son of a Gun!" "S.O.S.," "Rebel with a Cause," and "Boys' Day Out."

This is the last story in this collection. It has been a really great journey (okay, it was me huffing and puffing along and then you read and fed me fuel in the form of reviews to keep going), and I loved it! Thank you! So...see you next year? 24! *falls down ded* *yes it's 'ded' Nate and Eliot*

Other AN-y type stuff at the bottom.

* * *

**Lunchtime**

Frankie sits down at the lunch table next to Michael and heaves a sigh almost as big as he is.

Michael glances at the downcast first-grader. "What's up, F-bomb?" He has started calling the kid that, much to his father's amusement and Aunt Sophie's disapproval, because of the way Frankie bounces all around the place and very nearly _explodes_if he gets too excited.

This kid here, though, he's in no way wound up, not at all.

Frankie sighs again and mumbles something.

"What?" Michael exchanges a confused look with Irene.

"He said, Fred Masters took his lunch," Carrie, who inherited her mother's thief hearing, interprets, and bites into her peanut butter, M&Ms, and potato chip sandwich.

Michael and Irene look at each other again, and a silent communication goes between them.

"Which one's Fred Masters?" Michael asks innocently.

"That guy over there," Irene points. "Sixth grader," she adds grimly.

Michael turns around for a good look at the bully. Hm. He memorizes his face and clothes for later.

Irene opens her jewel-studded lunchbox (Michael had been shocked, really, truly shocked, when he found out that the rhinestones on the box are in fact real jewels, instead of plastic or glass fakes. Then he thinks, it must have been a gift from Aunt Parker. It's zany enough to be) and removes her own foie gras and grilled goat cheese sandwich. She pulls out one half from the clear zip-lock bag.

"Here, Frankie, you can have some of mine," she says and holds it out.

Frankie stands up on the bench so he can take a good look at the proffered sandwich. He sniffs at it, and makes a face. "That's the duck liver stuff, right? That's nasty, Reney. Your mom makes funny lunches."

Irene sighs, a controlled, put-upon sigh. "Fine," she says, "Don't say I didn't offer. You can starve for all I care." She takes a dainty bite of her duck-liver sandwich with a satisfied smile.

Frankie sits back down and pouts.

"Are you hungry, Frankie?' Carrie asks with her mouth full.

The boy nods and directs a plaintive look at his big sister's quickly-disappearing sandwich.

"Mmmmm," says Carrie.

Michael hands over half of his sandwich, a respectable roast beef between two slices of toasted rye. "Here, Frankie. You can have this."

Frankie pounces on the sandwich. "Uncle Eliot food!" he shouts, and, perfectly content again, proceeds to demolish it. "Fangks, Mikey." His heels rat-a-tat happily against the bench's metal leg.

Michael shakes his head and chuckles lightly. F-bomb. With narrowed eyes, he follows Fred Masters as he stomps around the playground.

"Hey, Frankie," he says, and puts a baggie of celery sticks on the table between them, "Eat some of these, too."

Frankie stops chewing and looks at his cousin with a "what the hell?" expression. He chews again and swallows. "They're veggies," he says.

"Yeah," Michael agrees, "Celery is a vegetable. Eat." He takes one piece out of the bag and chomps on it. The rest, he plops down in front of Frankie. "Celery, Frankie."

"But..."

"I gave you my sandwich. That means you have to eat the celery that comes with it," Michael explains firmly.

Frankie pouts. "My mom never makes us eat veggies," he whines.

"My mom did," Michael replies after a brief thin-lipped moment. "So does my dad. They're good for you. Eat."

Frankie looks in horror at the pale green sticks in the bag. "Ireeeeeeeeene," he whines, "I don't wannaaaaaaa."

Irene rolls her eyes. She reaches over and takes the bag. "We'll all eat one," she says in her most reasonable voice. She pulls one piece out and passes it on to Carrie, who shakes her head and shoos her away.

"I have my own food," she says, scooting away from the dreaded vegetable.

"Whatever," Michael says, and stands up. "I'm going to the bathroom."

A minute ago, Fred Masters had ploughed his way to the boys' restroom, and a stream of small boys holding their pants up had filed out the door. Some of them were crying.

Irene watches Michael walk nonchalantly into the bathroom. A short while later, a blotchy-faced Fred Masters scampers out, clutching at his pants to keep them up. The younger boys who had been so recently harassed by Fred giggle and point, and pretty soon, half of the playground is staring and laughing at the boy who cannot get his pants to stay up. Michael walks out of the restroom. No one looks at him.

Except for Irene.

"Did you wash your hands?" she asks when Michael sits down.

"No," Michael says sarcastically, "I peed and didn't wash my hands after." He takes the remaining stick of celery and bites into it. Irene makes a face at him.

Frankie snorts. "I do that sometimes!" he says brightly and shoves a cookie into his mouth, oblivious to the three disgusted stares thrown his way. Michael unobtrusively spits the mouthful of chewed-up celery back into the bag.

"Ew, Frankie," Carrie says, "That's unhygienical. That's like, a germ pool of unhygienicalness."

"Is that my cookie?" Irene asks suspiciously, looking at her cousin. "Frankie, you stole my cookie!"

"You mean this cookie?" Michael asks, taking a bite out of a double chocolate chip cookie. "Mmmmm, my dad makes the best cookies ever."

"Hey!" Irene exclaims, "That's mine!"

"What?" Michael says with his blue eyes wide open in as innocent a look as he can manage, "Frankie ate mine."

"Ugh," Irene huffs, and crosses her arms. "I hate you."

Michael grins and pops the last of the chocolaty baked goodness into his mouth. "Mmmmm."

The bell rings.

Irene humphs and flounces away.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The parents take turns picking the children up from school. It's Eliot's turn today.

Michael sits in the back of his dad's car, squished up against the two Hardison kids. Frankie is almost vibrating in his lap, while Carrie smirks at him with a knowing expression. Irene sits in the front passenger seat. She always, _always_ gets shotgun.

"So how was school?" Eliot asks, maneuvering out of the school parking lot. That's a talent in and of itself, driving around angry moms and braking for kids who don't look left and right.

"Michael ate my cookie," Irene fumes, and glares at the older boy in the back.

"Michael?" Eliot asks and glances in the rearview mirror in surprise.

"Frankie ate mine," the boy replies with a shrug.

"But you said you were gonna share your lunch with me," Frankie pouts.

"Only because you didn't have one," Michael says. "Besides, I gave you the sandwich _and_ the celery. I only had one cookie."

"It was yummy," Frankie nods.

"What?" Eliot shakes his head, trying to figure it all out. "Why didn't you have a lunch, Frankie? Didn't your mom give you one? What about Carrie?"

"We both had lunches, but someone took Frankie's, so Michael kicked the guy's butt and gave Frankie half his lunch," Carrie reports, without looking up from the phone in her hand.

Eliot's mind jumps on certain phrases in that sentence, like "someone took Frankie's" and "Michael kicked the guy's butt" and "gave Frankie half his lunch." Okay, so basically, the entire sentence.

"I didn't kick his butt," Michael retorts, "There was no butt-kicking involved."

Carrie snorts. "That was funny, though, whatever you did. Fred running around with his pants down. That was funny."

This, apparently, is something all four kids agree on. Eliot, on the other hand, rubs his forehead and groans. Pulling some kid's pants down. That's worse than a wedgie. At least there was no (as Michael put it) "butt-kicking" involved.

"So why did Michael eat Irene's cookie again?" he asks, just to untangle things.

That starts a fight about cookie rights and who gave whom what, and then it somehow turns into an argument about hand-washing and hygiene.

"Hey," he shouts to be heard above the commotion, "there's no fighting in the car. Stop pulling Irene's hair, Carrie. Irene, no fingernails."

"How about in the war room, Dad?" Michael smirks, cocky kid. "Can we fight in the war room?"

Eliot grins, and puts his hand back for a quick high-five. "Alright! Strangelove! You've seen it?"

"I thought the title was cool," Michael says, but really, his mom had loved old movies, and he'd watched it with her.

"I don't get it," Frankie whispers to Carrie, who shrugs.

"It's from a movie," Irene says snootily, "Don't you two know anything?"

Eliot nips the new argument in the bud. "Who wants ice cream?"

"Me!" "Ooh, me, me, me!" "I want ice cream!" "Can mine have unicorn sprinkles on top?"

"Uh, what? You mean rainbow sprinkles?"

"No, unicorn sprinkles." Carrie sighs when Uncle Eliot still doesn't get it. "Unicorns ride on silver moonbeams and shoot rainbows out of their ass," she explains. "Dean said so."

"One, who the heck is Dean, and two, why is he cussing around you?" the bewildered Eliot asks, prompting two "Uncle Eliot!" groans.

"It's from a TV show, Uncle Eliot," Irene says, as if explaining things to a five-year-old. Seriously.

Michael's eyes meet Eliot's in the rearview mirror. They shrug.

"I still want unicorn sprinkles."

"Why do you want something a horse with a horn pooped out of its a- "

"Michael."

"Butt?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

* * *

References:

_Dr. Strangelove_ had this awesome line in it: "There's no fighting in the war room!"

_Supernatural_: "Unicorns ride on silver moonbeams and shoot rainbows out of their ass." Oh, Dean, how I love thy quirky lines.

AN: This is it, folks! The end...Okay, I'll probably end up writing more of these verses, since I have some ideas in my head that I want to try out, but for now, a break. Actually, I have a couple of stories that I wrote for this collection that didn't get posted. One is the story I mentioned a couple of chapters back about Down Syndrome. I'm still not satisfied with that one, so I want to add/edit it before I post it (which I will). I also have a _Close to Home_ crossover that I wrote as a back-up, just in case I didn't make my self-set deadlines. That, I will post where it really belongs, in the _Leverage/Close to Home_ category.

**Edit 9/20/12:** I have posted the _Close to Home _story in the _Leverage/Close to Home_ section of this site. It has the imaginative title of "The Close to Home Job." I have also started posting a new story in the Grace verse (need to think of a new title for that, any ideas?) in the _Rescue 77_ (yes, I had them add a new category!)_/Leverage_ section. That one is called "Coffee Break."

* * *

Wow, thanks for sticking with me this far. Honorable mentions: **Ultrawoman, Sci F.I. Warper, Illucida, Harm Marie, Mary B. Wolf, whovian42, Jada Ryl, Jesco123,** um, who did I miss? Anyway, everyone who reviewed? You rock! You are the icing on my cake, the flames on my 23 candles, the helium in my balloons...I'm gonna stop now.

Anon review replies:

**GoHead19**: Thank you! Like I said, this is the end of this collection, but I will probably end up writing more of each series.

**drjones**: Aw, thanks! Hm, sounds like more "Two Wolves" verse is in order. *sigh* Have to get working on that then. Ack! Was that a story request? With a deadline? Huh? Do you even know that this site doesn't have a _Rescue 77_ category? Where would I post it? I guess in the general _Leverage_ category, huh? Okay. It probably won't be done on time, but keep an eye out, okay? I'll try to write something.

**WhiskeySkye** (from Chapter 17): *squeeful* Thank you so much! *blushes* Really. That is the kind of reaction I go for when I post something like this. Thanks. Citation and incident reports? Do you work for the government? Cool. See, I can write fanfic, but I can't write serious real-world things. *sigh*

That's it, right? Did I miss anyone? If I did, please accept this general "Thank you!" And I need to get the rest of your wonderful reviews answered. :D


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